Appendix A – Community Council Responses

Community Council Response • CC not satisfied with the consultation process as quoted to us at the presentation by Scottish Government representatives on 26th July. Until that evening nobody present had had any communication with or involvement with the process. As a result we found ourselves at odds with the results they claimed the islanders of Colonsay had given in a questionnaire of last year.

• We do not feel that tourism must have priority as without a community here there will be no tourism.

• We want the social and economic needs of Colonsay the community to be placed at the top of any list of targets for Calmac meaning ferries scheduled for us, affordable fares and transport costs which are not prohibitively high and make the cost of living here out of the reach of ordinary people. We would also like to see a transparent fares structure so that a journey from Oban to Colonsay would be the same as one from Kennacraig to Islay, both journeys covering roughly the same distance and time.

• Any suggestion that a small community could bear the cost of either ferries or of harbour infrastructure is ridiculous.

• Oban Community Council discused the Scottish Ferries Review at our meeting on the 30th of August. This is a very important issue for Oban and we have arranged with Oban FM to hold a phone in radio show to gather the views of the Oban community and are working with Isle of Kerrera Development Trust to gather the views from that part of our CC area. We will also have a discussion forum on our website and will need time to collate the views into our formal response.

Appendix A – Community Council Responses

• We will struggle to meet the deadline on 2nd September to feed into the Argyll & Bute Council response as we had been working towards the 30th of September deadline but will forward the information as soon as it is available.

• In common with many other community councils, Tarbert and Skipness Community Council have had a summer recess of two months. Our next meeting is on September 9th at which we propose to Tarbert and Skipness discuss the Ferries Review. Therefore, while we aim to meet the Scottish Government deadline for responses, we will not be able to respond to Argyll and Bute Council within your time-frame.

• The response from Jura Community Council will not be complete until mid September. We understand that will be Jura too late for the Council consideration but we shall forward directly to the Scot Gov Ferry Review.