Investment prioritisation

In line with the National Transport Strategy’s Sustainable Investment Hierarchy, this Plan is focused on vessel and port assets to allow the existing network of routes and services to be maintained and operated safely. Accordingly, it recommends investments to achieve reliability and resilience improvements within the fleet and achieve a target average vessel age of around 15 years by the end of this decade. However, when individual projects reach key decision points, the necessary funding may not be available. An objective and transparent approach to prioritisation is needed.

In such circumstances, the approach to investment prioritisation proposed in this Plan is to firstly ensure that the fundamentals for sustainable services and the socio-economic sustainability of communities, particularly in terms of reliability and resilience, are in place. In cases where affordability requires difficult decisions to be taken, the following three elements would be prioritised (these are not in order and would all be considered together):

• The sustainability of ferry services by maintaining and increasing reliability and resilience, including consideration of whether there are alternative means for maintaining essential transport connectivity for communities by ferry, air or road during times of disruption to the infrastructure associated with a primary ferry route;
• those ferry routes and services that provide the primary transport connection for people, goods and services required for the sustainability of each community;

those communities recognised as at greater risk of depopulation and economic decline and where assessment has identified investment in ferry assets as a preferred option in addressing that risk. This Plan does not identify those communities – this will be based on analysis and advice from the Scottish Government and local authorities in each case.