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Status of Stornoway Port Authority          8/11/14

 

 

Sir,

 

I must take issue with the Stornoway Gazette [6/11/2014] when it says of Stornoway Port Authority that “Under the Government’s Guidelines the SPA should be transparent in its plans and practices, although it is run as a private business.

 

The Stornoway Port Authority is emphatically NOT and never has been a private business either legally or constitutionally. Throughout its 149 years of operation the Stornoway Pier & Harbour Commission and Stornoway Port Authority’s raison d’etre has been to manage, regulate, maintain and improve the Harbour for the benefit of its stakeholders.

 

Stornoway Port Authority [SPA] is one of around 100 “Trust” ports in the British Isles. They can range in size from small ports like Stornoway, Inverness and Ullapool etc to major ports like Dover and Aberdeen.

 

Trust ports are independent statutory bodies, governed by their own local legislation and, run by independent boards, appointed in an open process involving its stakeholders, who manage the assets of the trust for the benefit of stakeholders.

 

There are some parallels to private trusts, where a fund, or property, is owned and managed by one party for the benefit of another. In that context the stakeholders of the trust, in whose interests the trustees work, are clearly and definitively identified.

 

Trust ports operate in a commercial environment with no direct public funding (but do access very significant capital grants for projects like lifeline ferry piers, slipway improvements, pontoons for fishermen and leisure users etc) and compete in the market with private and local authority ports as well as other trust ports. There are no shareholders or owners and profits are reinvested in the port to the benefit of the stakeholders.

 

So, who are the stakeholders? The stakeholders of a trust port are varied and numerous and some are often intricately bound up in the port's operation, perhaps as users or employees of the port. In the trust port context the stakeholders do not have a direct financial investment in the port in the way that shareholders do in a private company. It is essential to view any benefits in the round and not purely as monetary gains.

 

The Government publication Modernising Trust Ports – A Guide to Good Governance described a trust port as 'a valuable asset presently safeguarded by the existing board, whose duty it is

to hand it on in the same or better condition to succeeding generations.” This remains the ultimate responsibility of the board, and future generations remain the ultimate stakeholder.

 

So, who are the stakeholders (its “owners” in effect) in Stornoway Port Authority?

 

Port users- fishermen, ferry operators, ship owners, RNLI, leisure craft owners etc

The local community- Everyone in Lewis and arguably Harris.

Local and regional economies and authorities

Port employees including trade unions

Related interest groups

Local and regional businesses.

 

Perhaps this information will be useful for those who are genuinely interested in Stornoway Harbour and its wellbeing.

 

John J Maclennan

1, Willowglen Road

Stornoway

Isle of Lewis

 

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