Islands Connectivity Plan

The Islands Connectivity Plan (ICP) replaces the Ferries Plan but is wider in scope, taking account of ferry services, aviation, and fixed links, as well as onward and connecting travel. It is being developed within the context of the National Transport Strategy and the National Islands Plan and is being informed by the outcomes of the Strategic Transport Projects Review. Consultation and engagement are central to its development.

The Islands Connectivity Plan comprises an overarching Strategic Approach paper and a number of delivery plans. Work on the ICP is now well underway, with a public consultation on the draft Strategic Approach and the Vessels and Ports Plan having been undertaken earlier this year. Final versions of each of these documents are expected to be published by the end of 2024. Work on further elements of the ICP will follow, with a view to further engagement, consultation, and publications in due course.

Strategic Approach

The Strategic Approach paper proposes our overall Strategic Approach to island transport connectivity including ferries, aviation, fixed links and, especially, addressing the strategic challenges facing the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services and Northern Isles Ferry Services.

Vessels and Ports Plan

The Vessels and Ports Plan provides detail on the Scottish Government’s objectives for the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services and Northern Isles Ferry Services which the Scottish Government is directly responsible for.

It provides a long-term plan, to 2045, for the vessel and port investment considered necessary to address the key challenges of reliability and resilience.

Consultation

Although the consultation has now closed, you can access copies of the documents above and also the consultation questions.

The responses received to this consultation will inform the Islands Connectivity Plan including the final versions of these two documents.

This consultation was open from 1 February and closed on 6 May 2024. All responses have been reviewed by a specialist independent analysis team and a report has been provided to Transport Scotland. We value your input and would like to thank you for taking the time to provide your views on how we can improve our ferry services and wider island transport connectivity. The independent report, and a summary are now available to be viewed.

Our initial responses to your answers have been compiled, and we will use the feedback received to finalise both the Strategic Approach and the Vessels and Ports Plan.

We have also published responses to the publication, where respondents have given permission to do so.

Impact Assessments

In parallel, an Islands Communities Impact Assessment, a Business Regulatory Impact Assessment, an Equality Impact Assessment, a Strategic Environmental Assessment and a Fairer Scotland Duty Assessment are being carried out to inform the development of the overall Islands Connectivity Plan. This process aims to ensure that the impacts on island communities and businesses, groups with protected characteristics and environment are captured and considered, including reducing inequalities, in the development of policies and plans detailed in the draft Islands Connectivity Plan.

Public Engagement

The Plan is based on feedback from communities and sets an overall strategic direction for future island transport connectivity. Alongside the public consultation which has now been completed, we held a series of public events on islands and peninsulas served by ferry services.

Read the next section to learn about our stakeholder engagement.

Alongside the public consultation for the Strategic Approach and the Vessels and Ports Plan, we also held a series of engagement sessions to inform the overall development of the Islands Connectivity Plan.

These sessions helped to build on a number of visits the team had made previously, supporting both the Scottish Government Islands Team and the Clyde & Hebrides Ferry Services (CHFS) project team on their engagement visits across a number of islands and peninsulas.

Engagement Programme

The public consultation on both documents was live from 1 February to 6 May 2024, and was supported by a number of public events where Transport Scotland officials heard from people directly.

As part of the engagement programme, we visited the below island and peninsula communities along the west coast and Northern Isles, and held 26 different engagement sessions.

• Harris
• Raasay
• Shetland
• Gigha
• Tarbert
• Islay
• Lismore
• Jura
• Mull
• Iona
• Barra
• Coll
• Orkney
• Eigg

There were two parts to each engagement:

1. Structured workshop focusing on 3 key themes
2. Drop-in session where we welcome conversation on any aspects of the Islands Connectivity Plan.

The structured workshop was designed to feature small group discussions, each led by a facilitator from Transport Scotland. Participants were asked to engage in three rounds of discussions, exploring key themes related to the Islands Connectivity Plan Strategic Approach and Vessels and Ports Plan. The themes were:

• Community voice and transparency
• Accessibility of ferries for people with disabilities or other impairments to travel
• Integration of ferries with onward and connecting travel

These are three of the key themes set out in the draft Strategic Approach paper. In total, 11 themes were explored further through the public consultation. We focussed on these three themes in these workshops as we felt these were where the gaps in our knowledge and understanding were and we wanted to hear directly from people who use and rely on ferry services.

Each event also offered time for a drop-in session, for people to offer feedback on any part of the plan or to ask questions.

Further Engagement

Following publication of the Cowal and Rosneath Community Needs Assessment report, we conducted a short user survey to gauge feedback on the impact of the various options noted with the report and also held drop-in engagement sessions in Kilcreggan, Gourock and Dunoon, where we will spoke with ferry users about the report, gathered valuable feedback, and representatives from CalMac shared concept timetables for the future service options set out in the report.