2nd September 2026
For Scotland's island communities, ferries are not a luxury as they are roads that happen to float.
That is why the latest news about CalMac's fleet is so frustrating. Passengers are being asked to pay more while the programme to replace the ageing fleet continues to suffer delays and rising costs.
CalMac increased its fares for the 2026 summer timetable by 3.4%, saying the increase reflected inflation and was needed to help maintain reliable and sustainable services.
At the same time, three new ferries being built in Turkey have encountered further delays and the Scottish Government has approved another £20 million to help complete them.
The three vessels, Loch Indaal, Lochmor and Claymore, are intended to strengthen a fleet that has been under pressure for years. Loch Indaal is now expected to be handed over in October, while Lochmor and Claymore are expected during the first half of 2027.
The Scottish Government says the additional money is necessary to ensure the vessels are completed. The ferries are being built at Cemre shipyard in Turkey, where the Scottish Government's ferry infrastructure company CMAL took ownership of the unfinished vessels earlier this year as a precaution after the shipyard encountered financial difficulties.
There is nothing wrong with building ferries overseas if that provides Scotland with the vessels it needs at a reasonable cost and within a reasonable timescale.
The problem is that Scotland appears to have become remarkably good at finding ways for the cost and timetable to change after the contract has been signed.
And we have seen this before.
The Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa, being built at the Scottish Government-owned Ferguson Marine yard, have become perhaps the most notorious examples.
The original contract for the two vessels was around £97 million. The combined cost has subsequently risen to well over £460 million. The Glen Sannox eventually entered service, but the Glen Rosa has continued to suffer delays.
The Glen Rosa saga is now approaching eight years beyond its original delivery schedule.
That is difficult to explain to an island community waiting for a replacement ferry.
And it is not simply a matter of embarrassing government accounting.
An unreliable ferry service affects almost everything.
It affects tourism because visitors cannot be certain that they will get on or off an island when they expect to.
It affects businesses because deliveries, staff and customers depend upon reliable transport.
It affects islanders travelling for hospital appointments, education, work and shopping.
It affects people who may already have very little choice about when they travel.
A ferry cancellation in central Scotland might be an inconvenience.
For an island community it can mean the difference between getting home and being stranded.
This is why the language used to describe the ferry network matters.
It is tempting to regard ferries simply as another public transport service and therefore ask whether fares should cover more of their cost.
But that misses something fundamental.
A ferry serving an island is performing much the same economic function as a bridge or road serving a mainland community.
Nobody asks whether the A9 has made enough money to justify its existence.
The question is whether Scotland needs the road.
The same principle should apply to essential ferry connections.
There is, of course, a legitimate debate about how much taxpayers should subsidise ferry travel and how much passengers should contribute.
But that debate should take place alongside another one.
How much is poor project management costing the taxpayer?
Every month of delay can have consequences.
An old ferry remains in service for longer.
Maintenance costs continue.
Breakdowns become more likely.
Alternative vessels may have to be hired.
Timetables become more difficult to maintain.
Businesses lose confidence.
And passengers face higher fares without necessarily seeing a corresponding improvement in the service.
That is the vicious circle Scotland needs to break.
The latest £20 million increase for the Turkish-built vessels is particularly uncomfortable because these ferries were supposed to be part of the solution to the ageing fleet.
Instead, Scotland is still waiting for them while the bill rises.
There is another lesson here too.
Scotland has spent years talking about the importance of having a domestic shipbuilding industry.
The Ferguson Marine experience demonstrates the enormous difficulties involved in trying to rebuild that capability through public ownership and government-backed contracts.
But ordering ships abroad has not proved to be a magic solution either.
The answer cannot simply be "build them in Scotland" or "build them overseas".
The answer has to be build the right vessels, with realistic specifications, proper project management, enforceable contracts and a delivery timetable that somebody is actually held responsible for meeting.
That sounds obvious.
Yet somehow it has proved remarkably difficult.
There is also a question about accountability.
When a private company delivers a project late and substantially over budget, there are normally contractual consequences.
When a government-owned organisation, a government agency and a publicly funded programme are involved, responsibility can become much harder to pin down.
Everyone can explain why the latest problem was somebody else's fault.
The shipyard had difficulties.
The specification was complicated.
Materials became more expensive.
There were technical problems.
A supplier encountered financial trouble.
A vessel needed additional work.
All of these things can be true.
But eventually somebody has to ask the uncomfortable question:
Why was the risk not identified earlier?
And if it was identified, why was it not dealt with?
This is where the ferry debate should now go.
Scotland does not need another political promise that the ferry problem is being solved.
It needs evidence.
It needs to know exactly how much the replacement programme will cost, when each vessel will enter service, what contingency arrangements exist if another vessel is delayed and who will be held accountable if the timetable slips again.
Island communities should not have to discover the answer when they arrive at the terminal and see a cancellation notice.
There is a wider lesson here for Scottish infrastructure.
Ferries are only one part of the public sector. The same questions arise with roads, hospitals, schools, railways and major energy projects.
A government can announce a £100 million project quite easily.
The difficult part is delivering it for anything remotely close to £100 million.
Scotland has become accustomed to announcements being followed by revised budgets and revised completion dates.
That cannot continue indefinitely.
The public eventually starts to lose confidence not only in individual projects but in the ability of government to manage anything complicated.
And that is perhaps the greatest cost of the ferry fiasco.
The public can understand that unexpected problems happen.
What is harder to accept is a pattern in which the problems seem to keep happening.
Meanwhile, the passengers continue to pay.
The fares go up.
The old vessels continue sailing.
The replacement vessels remain under construction.
And the island communities wait.
So perhaps the most appropriate description of the current situation is not that Scotland is solving its ferry problem.
It is managing the consequences of not having solved it yet.
That is not good enough.
For the islands, a ferry is not simply a boat.
It is their connection to the rest of Scotland.
And when that connection is unreliable, late or increasingly expensive, the consequences are felt far beyond the ferry terminal.
Pay more. Wait longer. Hope the boat turns up.
After all these years, Scotland should be doing rather better than that.