Ferry traffic face ungritted roads

Heavy lorries and carloads of families could end up driving on hazardous, ungritted icy roads in the pitch black of winter as a result of Cal Mac’s plans for a disrupted ferry service for Lewis.

For six weeks over the Easter holidays, the Stornoway ferry will be diverted to Uig in Skye while the ferry linkspan at the usual destination, Ullapool, is replaced.

But an irregular timetable for between February 22 until April 7 with middle-of-the-night sailings because the MV Isle of Lewis ferry is restricted by her draft at the Skye pier and cannot berth except around high tide.

The timetable changes almost daily - for example, sometimes the ship will sail from 3am in the morning, other occasions it may be 3pm in the afternoon.

It means ferry traffic, including large freight lorries and families travelling at Easter, will be forced to drive on roads which are not gritted overnight.

Easter last year saw very busy bookings and full ships on the Stornoway run so reducing the timetable to a single sailing most days would mean a concentration of ferry traffic driving at night.

Ferry traffic faces dark, ungritted roads

20 November 2014

Easter last year saw busy bookings on the Stornoway run so reducing the timetable to a single sailing most days would mean a concentration of ferry traffic driving at night.

Western Isles Council is understood to be worried about extra people travelling in snowy weather on icy, unsalted roads - both on the mainland and on Lewis - for an early morning ferry.

Despite its budget woes, the council may be forced to rethink its daytime-only road treatment policy and send gritting lorries out at all hours.

The Western Isles Emergency Planning Co-Ordination Group (WIEPCG) which includes the police, emergency services and the local authority, convened an urgent meeting to discuss the implications.

A spokesman for the body raised concerns how the “redirection of large quantities of HGV traffic onto roads through Skye and the adjacent mainland will have an adverse impact on traffic flows on trunk routes.”

Western Isles hauliers also oppose the published temporary timetable as does visitor body, Outer Hebrides Tourism.

Cal Mac has now agreed to meet Western Isles Council, lorry operators and the tourism industry over the row.

Norman Macdonald, convenor of Western Isles Council said: “The council has clear concerns.

“We need to ensure supplies and travel across the Minch is far more reliable than the timetable will give us.”

He stressed it was important that “supplies can get in and out at a busy time of year.”

He said Cal Mac conceded the lack of consultation meant the “episode could have been better handled.”