Sail away...

The draft winter timetables have (finally) been released for the Lochboisdale-Castlebay-Oban and Lochboisdale-Mallaig ferry sailings, and all things considered they are not too bad.

There will be five sailings a week between Lochboisdale and Oban, and vice versa, all stopping in at Castlebay. It is not exactly ideal but we are quite used to the seven hour+ journey, especially in winter. 

All of the sailings leaving Lochboisdale involve an early start - on the last draft I saw there were two 6am sailings and three 7am sailings. If you are getting the bus or the train then it entails arriving in Oban at 1 or 2 o'clock and facing a 4 or 5 hour wait. A long wait in Oban can be a pretty miserable prospect in winter. After getting a chippie, wandering around Tesco for a bit, and maybe going to Pets at Home to look at the fish there is not much left to do. 

The waiting times in Mallaig will be much shorter. At the consultations held this week the need for the sailings to connect with public transport was mentioned and luckily it was taken on board. The draft timetables show two return journeys on a Tuesday and again on a Saturday, with the Lord of the Isles leaving Lochboisdale at 6am and again at 2pm. The wait between the ferry arriving in Mallaig and the train leaving for Fort William will be 45 or 55 minutes. Perfect.

Now for Calmac to finalise everything and get it updated on the website so that we can actually book something!

Don't tell me our youth is running out

It is pretty widely acknowledged that we have an issue with getting young people to stay, or to come back after they have finished university. The 2011 Census results show that between 2001 and 2011 there was a 6.6% drop in the number of people aged 15-39 in the Outer Hebrides. This is fuelled by a tendency for young people and not come back (apart from for occasional holidays).

And what is the main factor that encourages young people to leave (and not come back)? Jobs.

At the end of August during “Make Young People Your Business Week”, the Leader of the Comhairle wrote a blog post asserting the Comhairle commitment to helping young people into work, and hailing the numbers of participants on the Employability Fund, and working through Modern Apprenticeships and through the Youth Employment Scotland Fund. While these schemes undoubtedly provide valuable opportunities, particularly to school leavers, I feel that more needs to be done to attract graduates back to the islands.

Part of the problem is that many schemes available are aimed at “young people” and somebody, somewhere decided that young people are those aged 16-24. (And that makes me, rather depressingly, not young). But why is 16-24 used for most schemes in the Outer Hebrides when we have an ageing population and a clear need for more young people to stay or return? (One big exception is Princes’ Scottish Youth Business Trust which has recognised that the Outer Hebrides has different needs and has extended the support they provide to include people up to age 30).

Of course there are some schemes aimed at graduates. Adopt an Intern ran a successful Highlands and Islands programme over the last year and the ScotGrad programme (through HIE) provides summer and graduates placements across the Highlands and Islands (although grad placements can only be applied for within one year of graduating). These schemes, and others similar to them, are used pretty effectively by Third Sector organisations and SMEs. However, the Comhairle seems to fall short. They did offer several internships over the summer but they were all short-term and based in Lewis. They need to do more to attract young people back to the islands, and providing more opportunities for graduates, right across the Outer Hebrides, would be a great start.

So what else can be done? Well, lots really, but I will discuss that another day. It is getting late and I need to go and put on some anti-wrinkle cream and try to convince myself that 26 is still young.

We are sailing...

Calmac have been in town recently consulting with community representatives on the new Lochboisdale - Mallaig winter ferry service and the Lochboisdale – Oban winter timetable. 

A press release was issued stating that a meeting was held with a local councillor, fishermen, the Outer Hebrides Commerce Group (OHCG), Storas Uibhist, and Lochboisdale Community Councillors. Many of those mentioned have spent years campaigning for the introduction of a Lochboisdale-Mallaig service and should be commended for their hard work and perseverance. I am confused, however, by the mention of Lochboisdale Community Councillors (LCC). 

There are no contact details for LCC on the council website and the last minutes or mention I have seen from them is from May 2012. The other community councils all feature on the CnES website and there are details of upcoming elections and previous results. So why have LCC been included and who are the Lochboisdale Community Councillors who were present at the meeting?

If the LCC is up and running again then it would be great to hear about it and find out who is involved and what they are doing for the community. It would also be interesting to know when they plan to hold their next election.

Moving on to the proposed timetables and things are sounding pretty good. Although I have never really been a fan of getting up for a 6am departure, it does mean that the service will coincide with public transport to and from Mallaig and you can be in Inverness for lunch (or Glasgow for a late lunch). The return leg is proposed to leave Mallaig at 6pm, which will also link up with public transport, and opens up the opportunity to go to Fort William for the day and be home in your own bed that night. (Why go to Fort William for a day I hear you ask? They have a MacDonald’s, a Morrisons, a Boots, and a WH Smith – it is the Buchanan Galleries to our Savoy Centre).

Calmac has also proposed an additional sailing from Lochboisdale and Castlebay to Oban, bringing it up to five sailings a week. If they could just link it up with public transport in Oban and expand the LB-Mallaig service to the summer (and add some more sailings) then everything would be just perfect.

Games, puddings, and insulation

It will just be a short post today as I have been majorly distracted by GTA V, Spelunky (or The Wee Man Game as it is known in our house), a vat of rice pudding made by my boyfriend, and The Great British Bake Off. 

It was announced today that Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and Tighean Innse Gall have secured up to £3.5 million funding to deliver energy efficiency measures for private home in the Western Isles. The scheme will initially target homes with electric or solid fuel heating that require external wall insulation.

I was delighted to read this and we will be phoning our landlords tomorrow to beg them to sign up. Our current abode has no insulation, single glazed windows, draughty doors, and the radiators are heated by the back boiler, which is heated by the fire. We don’t even have radiators upstairs! And as anybody who has ever lived or worked with me will know, I am always cold, even when everyone else is warm. In this house everyone else feels the cold and I have to wear a dressing gown over my clothes and wrap myself in a blanket.

Hebridean Housing Partnership has been upgrading the houses they own so that they meet the Scottish Housing Quality Standard by 2015. At the end of last year the houses HHP owns on our street got air source heat pump systems, including new boilers and radiators (even upstairs), and this year they got cavity wall insulation for the external walls. They are nice and warm now. 

I have two hot water bottles though so I am sure I can cope.