CalMac ferries upkeep costs almost triple in five years

The bill for repairing and maintaining Scotland's ageing publicly-owned ferry fleet has almost trebled in the past five years, new figures have shown.

A freedom of information request from the Scottish Liberal Democrats found the annual cost of fixing CalMac-run ferries in 2018-19 was about £15.5m.

Between 2022-23 the cost rose to £26.6m and by 2023-24 further increased to £41.2m.

CalMac has faced criticism in recent years over the reliability of its vessels but six new ferries are due to come into service in the coming years.

These include the two over-budget and late vessels being built by Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow.

Another seven small vessels have also been procured.

The firm has struggled to maintain services with an ageing and increasingly unreliable fleet which it leases from another government-owned company CMAL.

There have been delays to repairs to the main Arran ferry, cancellation of services to South Uist and islanders on Mull have faced frequent disruption.

Two long-delayed CalMac ferries - destined for the busy Arran route - are being built at a nationalised shipyard, but have faced long delays and increasing costs.

Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow aims to hand over the first ship in the week beginning 19 August.

The latest estimated cost to complete the two ships remains at just under £300m, on top of £83m that was paid out before the firm was nationalised and £45m of government loans that were largely written off.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said the "old and battered" vessels in the existing fleet require more time and money to repair.

Repairs and maintenance have cost £147.8m in total since 2018-19.

"The SNP's ferries fiasco has left islanders without the lifeline services they need," he said.

"They have been in power for 17 years. There is no-one to blame but themselves.

He added that the SNP had "let people down for too long".

Diane Burke, interim operations director at CalMac, said the company had "always been open" about having to invest more heavily in both planned and unplanned maintenance costs in recent years, but the cost of upkeep would be reduced when new vessels arrive.

"This spend has been essential to maintaining a reliable ferry service to Scotland's west coast communities, with a third of our fleet of 35 vessels now operating beyond their life expectancy," she said.

"Six major new vessels are due to enter our fleet by 2026, including MV Glen Sannox and MV Isle of Islay later this year."

Ms Burke said those new ferries and the government-funded tender for up to seven new small vessels would "modernise a significant portion of our fleet".

Transport Scotland said the maintenance and repairs were essential from a health and safety and reliability basis and their ferry replacement programme would "provide more reliability of service which is what islanders need and deserve".

“With six new major vessels to serve Scotland’s ferry network by 2026, this will help alleviate the need for extensive repairs on older vessels," a spokesman added.