What are your thoughts on this?
Is Western Ferries right to complain about CalMac's accounts?
Is CalMac right to threaten legal action?
The politicians are all making the right noises about a vehicle service, but will they deliver?
What would Dunoon's town centre be like without a vehicle service?
Share your thoughts with the world...

If Cal-Mac are abusing the system, then yes.

Why are so many voting for a vehicular service. It was the same at the public meetings. If so many people want a town centre service, why are the majority of vehicles using Western Ferries. Seems people want two competing services, but will only use one of them! Doesn`t make financial sense to me, no matter what way you look at it.

You've hit the nail on the head - people want two competing services - the fact that one can run as often as it chooses and the other is restricted to one an hour doesn't quite match that criterion, does it?
Miss a Calmac ferry and you've got an hour's wait - miss Western's and you've got perhaps ten minutes - it doesn't take a genius to work out why Western's creaming off the bulk of the traffic.

The present passenger only service does not run in bad weather you have to wait for the vehicle service. If we only had a passenger service it would be a disaster.

As others have said;

Two competing services are required to keep prices down.
Western Ferries only carry more vehicles now because they have an unrestricted timetable.

Questions we should be asking the Minister for Transport, Stewart Stevenson MSP (SNP), are;

Why has he not already lifted timetable restrictions on CalMac?
Why has he not removed shore ticketing requirements on CalMac (Western Ferries does not suffer from this meaningless restriction)?

The high cost of ferry journeys strangles Dunoon and Cowal.

The answer to bad weather is suitable passenger ferries if that is the only option. The "Maid" type of vessel may be the only suitable type, and if required sheltered linkspans/berths. The Dunoon new linkspan is not sutable in certain winds as the area gets washed with spray, which I`m sure would be a hazard for passengers. Fingers crossed there will be at least 1 of the 4 companies willing to provide a suitable service.

Why should we be crossing our fingers?
Surely our elected representatives should be delivering a good solution for Cowal. That has to be competing vehicle services operating in all weathers.

At the moment Western Ferries don't really have competition because of the restricitions CalMac operate under. Look at the cost of a visitor bringing a family of four over to Cowal in a car, this must really put a lot of people off. With only one vehicle operator the situation will get even worse.

I understand all the points about a town centre to town centre service, and the need for competition, but does it really matter if vehicles come and go in Dunoon and Gourock town centres?
The big question is would the regular vehicle travellers use a town centre service if it had say a half hour service, and was the same price as Western`s service? Maybe an idea for a new poll moderator? I don`t think regular users would have two different company tickets with them just to keep both services viable. Correct me if I`m wrong, but have Cal-Mac and Western both said publicy that there isn`t the vehicular traffic to support two services?

Unfair to CalMac! Calmac at a disadvantage because of restrictive timetables. Is that the best debate you can come up with? You have to be joking?

There was a valid reason CalMac got restricted. Western Ferries (Argyll) Ltd., out of business on Islay anyone? Monopolies Commission investigation into CalMac anyone? Don't even get me started about Taygran Brothers Shipping, or Arran Ferries Ltd.

The BIG question is why are CalMac getting a £2,381,000 ANNUAL taxpayer subsidy (2007 figures) to run their service and Western Ferries (Clyde) Ltd., getting NO subsidy.

The best solution would be to gently send uncle CalMac to the old folks boat home, retire it off route, give £1,000,000 a year to Western so they can half their fares, put a free bus on from Dunoon town Centre via Western Ferries to Gourock town centre, and save the taxpayer £1,381,000 a year. Not to mention the eye watering prospect of us taxpayers having to pay a Polish shipyard £25,000,000 x 3 to build three new streakers.

Job done.

We need a ferry service to Gourock town centre because that is where the train station is.

I used to have car ferry tickets for both Western and Calmac. When I needed to get a ferry I went on the first available one. Naturally I travelled far more on Western than Calmac because Western sail more frequently and for longer.

Doing the arithmetic though I found that the Calmac ferry actually carried more traffic than you would expect i.e. if everybody was free to take the first available ferry then actually it seemed Western Ferries should carry more traffic than they mange to. In other words Calmac seemed to be the more popular vehicle ferry and only carries less vehicles because of the timetable.

Now I tend to travel as a foot passenger, but I am still strongly in favour of there being competing vehicle services. A passenger only service simply will not be reliable because the vessels will be smaller and not able to cope with the weather. Just today the Ali-Cat had to cancel because of the weather but the Jupiter kept on sailing. This is not too bad if there is a larger vehicle ferry you can wait for but if there is only a passenger service and its off for most of the day the situation would be dire and you can be sure that the service will close completely after one or two years.

There may be reasons for delays in getting new boats but why have timetable and shore ticketing restrictions on Calmac not been lifted.

What Dunoon needs is competing high volume, low cost vehicle ferry services.
Dunoon could be a good weekend destination for many people but the high ferry costs put people off.

I see your point, but as Angus points out where are the funds for 2 car ferries coming from, especially if the government know that Western Ferries will provide these ferries for free?