Discounts with STG ferries
Page 14
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• The Scottish Transport Group has announced that discounts will be allowed on new West Coast ferry charges to drivers of certain vehicles while a new scale of charges is being examined. A spokesman for the group said: "As with the introduction of all new tables of charges and particularly where the system of charging has been altered as in this case, in extreme cases anomalies arise. This has certainly proved to be the case at Kyle, particularly in the case of long, light vehicles."
He added: "While these anomalies are being examined drivers or operators of such vehicles should apply to the port manager for the area, who is in Uig, or to the office manager at Kyle, who have been authorized to make discount adjustments in extreme cases. It is hoped that a permanent and equitable charging structure will be achieved in the light
of experience.
This follows complaints by islanders not only at an across-the-board 10 per cent increase on the group's ferries from Sunday, but at the fact that certain ferries were now charging commercial vehicles according to length as against tonnage.
An STG spokesman said that the company had decided that, as it was deck space that was being sold, charges should be made according to length instead of tonnage, but the scale of charges was being examined.
Mr Alistair Sutherland, a Broadford, Skye, garage managing director and an Inverness county councillor, said: "I feel that by transferring the scale of charges from tonnage to length, they are attempting to get round the 'freeze'."
At least one MP, Mr Russell Johnstone Inverness-shire, is arranging to discuss the position with STG executives.