While the original pier at Dunoon may be deteriorating (apparently rapidly) while those involved discuss its future survival, and even use, the pier at Largs has popped up in the news with its future secured by a £6 million project to provide the seaside town with a new pier to help provide shelter and overnight berthing for Caledonian MacBrayne ferries, which cover the Largs to Cumbrae route.

Work to start on new Largs pier

I saw that on the news.  The pier at Largs  belongs to Calmac whereas Dunoon's as with Rothesay's belong to Argyll & Bute Council.   It would be considered sacriligious locally to suggest it, but it would have been better to have sold the piers to Calmac years ago even if only for a token £1.

You're right there, on both counts, but the self-defeating hate campaign that seems to be so beloved of a few influential people also seems to hold the upper hand, and a vocal minority seems to hold sway whenver there is any debate.

CalMac appointed a local rep who lives on Bute, has proposed changes to the service (which may, or may not be improvements, but never get a fair hearing), attended hostile local meeting, and eventually gave up and walked out of the last meeting as all they got was the same rhetoric chanted at them by "the few".

I used to enjoy commenting/blogging elsewhere, and taking part in forum discussions about the ferry, until I recognised the pattern of the responses, and came to the coclusion that there was some sort of local concpiracy underway, and decided to bring things to an end. I see little or no difference four years later, and no real progress.

I don't know about that.  They have 2 new ferries and a new Ro-ro ramp.

The ferries were replacement vessels which were scheduled for thirty years, and the linkspan, as far as the locals are concerned may be a new installation, but is something that also been years in the coming and was way overdue when it arrived - the ferries it was to work with coming into service almost two years before the links was installed.

So nothing new has been delivered on Bute, only catch-up on past plans, and late at that.

The big complaint now is that there is no breakwater at Wemyss Bay, which has no natural protection whatsoever, so when the bad weather hits, the ferries have to operate from Gourock, which means buses to shift folk trying to use Wemyss Bay, and at least an hour and a half on a journey, plus any delays in sailing and missing of train and bus connections.

The vocal minority are (I think) a nasty little clique that have achieved power, and are of the "All we say is right" brigade. For example, despite those new ferries being larger and carrying more per trip, a suggestion to move from 45-minute to hourly sailings (which I understand would have integrated better with train and bus timetables - but haven't checked for myself) was beaten down by them on the basis that they will not accept any reduction in service. While they analysed the resultant timetable and carefully counted the number of sailings that the hourly sailing and re-fuelling breaks would have given, and deemed that this was an unacceptable reduction, I'm still waiting to see that part of the analysis that counted the net number of passengers an vehicles that would be carried in a day, given that the number of salings would fall, but the vessel capacity per sailing had increased. Part of the hourly deal was, I think - it's a while since I read the detail - actually added sailing at the end of the day, but did interfere with the established routine, so should have been open for debate. However, the mafia didn't like it, so there wasn't going to be any discussion, and the debate was curtailed, CalMac were accused of being uncooperative, and I think that was when they threw up their arms, and finally walked out

Certainly an hourly service would meet the train passengers needs better, as there is only one train per hour, leaving Central Station at 10 to the hour.  A 45 minute ferry service must mean a lot of hanging about in both directions.

However, I suspect that a majority of ferry users travel by car and to them an hourly service would equal a reduction in service.

We have a new subject for debate in Dunoon.  A bus service run by McGills of Greenock from Dunoon pier to Glasgow via Braehead using Western Ferries.  We have not beeen told who came up with this idea but my money is not on the bus company.  This appears to many of us as an attempt to create an alternative town centre to town centre service which would allow the closure of the Calmac service and give Western a monopoly.

You'll have to work what the "majority" of ferry users are for yourself, but as a user, whenever I travel (which is always by car) I would have to say that I consider myself to be outnumbered by foot passengers who appear as if from nowhere from trains and buses.

Here are the most recent figures I have for carryings:

Wemyss Bay
2007:- Passengers:770,316 Cars:164,204 Coaches:1,373 Commercials:12,280 Total:948,173

Dunoon
2006:- Passengers:615,215 Cars:77,816 Coaches:981 Commercials:5,011 Total:699,023

No accurate figures are available for the privately owned Western Ferries route, however in a News Release published by the Clydesdale Bank in 2004, marking the retiral of the Managing Director, the arrival of a new management team, and the bank's agreement to a £3 million funding package, the following statements were made:

"This focus resulted in it securing more than 80% market share of the Gourock-Dunoon route" and "Western Ferries carries over one million passengers and 500,000 cars every year between Dunoon and Gourock, operating four vessels up to 16 hours-a-day with ferries running every fifteen minutes at peak times".

Route Demand on the Dunoon services has been analysed in the past, over the 1996/1997 period, with the following summary being published:

The total traffic carried on the route each year, including foot and vehicle passengers, has risen from approximately 1.2 million in 1992 to 1.45 million in 1997. CalMac's share of the total has been stable at just over 0.6 million passengers per annum, while Western Ferries' has risen from 0.6 million to 0.8 million per annum. Further analysis suggests that the reason for this is that half of CalMac's market comprises foot passengers, while Western Ferries' is the market leader for car passengers, and car traffic has increased more rapidly than foot traffic on the route.

The Dunoon to Braehead service is interesting, and would really have to use the Western Ferry due to the restriction enforced on CalMac.

I'm almost tempted to think that the choice of Braehead as a terminus suggests this has more to do with promoting the monstrous shopping centre than trying to influence the Scottish Governement and have the CalMac ferry closed. From this end, and as one who has not interest in the place, the name crops up with annoying regularity as the focal point for "new plans" and suggest to me, at least, that there is some sort of team working hard to promote the place.

Sorry if I have misled you over Braehead, it is just a stopping off point en route to Glasgow.  Many think this is a cynical attempt to run an alternative town to town passenger service.  It may be experimental as Western's ferries are designed for cars and if they had a monopoly getting a large number of foot passengrs walking off and onto the ferries would play havoc with the timetable. However, if you can load them 50 at a time on a bus - problem solved possibly.

Opinions vary as to the usefulnes of the service.  I know of some people who used it to go to Braehead/ Glasgow but found the return link unsatisfactory and made their own way back saying they would not bother with the through bus service again.

Re car/ foot passengers I have to say that I have no experience of WB to Rothesay and I do not travel Dunoon- Gourock at peak times so my impression that there are not all that many foot passengers is incorrect.  However, I wonder how many of Rothesay's vocal minority always travel by car.

See what you mean about the bus - makes it easier for them to play with the idea and see what happens.

Don't know that the description of the Western Ferries ferries being designed for cars is entirely accurate, as they can easily accommodate coaches and commercials, and have an deck loading of 11 tonnes per axle.

Lots travel by car, they are (in my opinion) the people that can afford to live on Bute, but want to work in Glasgow and Edinburgh (and further), and will use their car either to travel as a group, and/or to travel to a suitable place to hop on the train or bus and avoid the city congestion and parking problems and charges. The rest gripe about not being able to park free at the terminal, so they can drive there, and leave the car behind and cross on foot.

The local paper contains comments such as "I moved here 4/5 years ago, and the ferry means I can't live here and work on the mainland".

Well, I think that's real tough - if you're so keen to live on Bute, have the decency to work there and not parachute yourself in there and campaign for changes to suit you r lifestyle after you've been there for a whole 5 minutes compared to those who have spent their lives there, and lived within the resources available.

When the 5 minute brigade decide to up sticks in a few years when somewhere else starts to look nicer to them, its the local life residents that will have to live with the effect of their changes - if they're allowed to make them.