The ferry services are lifelines for many communities but there have been problems in recent years with mechanical failures as well as shipyards failing at providing state of the art replacements. A programme of building replacement ferries needs to start as soon as possible so that there is a surplus of vessels in the fleet to cover for vessel unavailability and breakdowns. The ferries do not need to be state of the art but robust and suitable for the sea conditions around Scotland. This does not only apply to the island ferries, but also some like the Corran Ferry in Lochaber which needs long term planning and replacing with a bridge, as happened decades ago with the Kylesku and Ballachulish ferries.
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