Information Bulletin
21 July 2005
Council Stands Firm on Shetland Transport Partnership
Shetland Islands Council Convener Sandy Cluness has responded to proposals by the Transport Minister to establish an islands' transport partnership involving Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles, expressing the view that the case for a Shetland Transport Authority is more robust than the Minister's proposals and that an islands' partnership will be less able to meet the transport challenges which Shetland faces in the coming years.
The Convener expressed concern that the Council were being asked to consider new proposals without having had a proper response to the Council's case for a transport partnership for Shetland. As recently as May, Tavish Scott, MSP announced that he had secured the opportunity for Shetland to submit its case to create a Shetland Transport Partnership and the Council subsequently submitted a comprehensive case to the Minister for consideration. That case proposed a partnership in line with the arrangements agreed for the single authority partnership for Dumfries and Galloway, which already enjoys Ministerial support.
"The Council has a clear position on this" the Convener said "and our view is that approval should be given for Shetland to form its own transport partnership. There is a powerful view that the Shetland case is much stronger than the Dumfries and Galloway case and we have not yet had a response to our submission to stand alone. I fully support the notion that Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles should work together, where appropriate, but I do not see that there are sufficient transport synergies for this proposal to make sense.
I am beginning to wonder what the Scottish Executive has against our community. On Monday we had the spectre of Northlink reincarnated through Calmac as the potential operator of our life-line ferry service. Today we hear that our application to become our own transport authority has been extended to Orkney and the Western Isles, despite the fact that they had accepted their inclusion in the Highland authority. I doubt very much whether any of the three islands will be in favour of such regionalisation, and would warn the Executive that if this proposal is rejected our existing application for unitary authority status must be granted immediately - any suggestion of a return to their earlier proposals would be met with unparalleled resentment in Shetland."
Ends.