We were lucky on the Harbour to not incur any damage from the storms over the weekend of 29th and 30th January. It will be interesting to see what wind speeds were recorded here, as although it was wild, I suspect it wasn’t as wild as elsewhere. There were fears for some of the more exposed buildings, as there were lumps of sea crashing over them, but thankfully all have survived!
January has been pretty miserable weather wise, but looking forward to the summer, Sail Scotland have launched a series of aerial videos, including one of Mallaig. You can find them all on their website, https://sailscotland.co.uk/plan/aerial-guides/, and we have shared the Mallaig one on the Harbour Authority’s website and Facebook page.
Last month we were still hopeful of a late sprat fishery, but unfortunately this didn’t materialise, and the pump has now been removed for another year. At this time of year, we always do a review of the fish landings, and the graph below shows how this has changed over the last ten years:
Although landings in 2021 have improved on 2020, which was so badly impacted by the pandemic, the overall trend is still downwards. In part this reflects the reductions in the fleet based in Mallaig, and there are implications from both the pandemic and Brexit, so it will be interesting to see what the trend is in another five years!
The Summer timetable for the Skye and Lochboisdale ferries has now been published, and by the time you read this the Small Isles timetable will also have been published. We are looking at some temporary improvements that can be made to the marshalling area for this season until more permanent works are possible. The Loch Bhrusda is due back for the third year of the trial of additional sailings in March, and, because Easter is late and affects the MCA certification, the Loch Fyne cannot start operating until 1st April so the Loch Bhrusda will service the route on its own until then. The hope is that the Coruisk will have returned by the start of May.
North West Marine’s ‘Meercat’, which is a fairly regular visitor to the Harbour, undertook the last of the investigative works in the Outer Breakwater on Friday 29th January and Monday 1st February, so work is still progressing in the background. We have also been granted planning permission to replace the portacabin at the Marina, and are awaiting the building warrant. Ideally we would like to have this done before the Marina opens for the season, but that might not be achievable now!
The work to create office space from the old Denholms office is also almost complete. Our intention is to lease two of the offices, and to keep the third as co-working space, which people will be able to use to hot-desk, or to book out for a meeting if required. We have some interest in the two offices at the moment, but to be open and transparent about the process, you will find an advert for the offices elsewhere in West Word. We’d like to gauge overall interest in office space locally as there may be other opportunities as we undertake the larger developments.
Sometimes it feels like I spend a lot of time filling in surveys and questionnaires to support various pieces of work. There are two of particular relevance that are open for public consultation at the moment. One of these is the Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), which will inform transport investment in Scotland for the next 20 years (2022-2042). One of the recommendations is around Port Infrastructure, and in particular supporting ferry vessel renewal and replacement and progressive decarbonisation of the ferry services. Anyone can contribute to the review, which is open until 15th April 2022, via the transport.gov.scot website
The second review is on an updated marine litter strategy for Scotland, which has an earlier closing date of 22nd March 2022. There are five objectives for the strategy, which can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/marine-litter-strategy-scotland-consultation/pages/6/ . These objectives include; Improving public and business attitudes and behaviours around marine and coastal litter, in co-ordination with the national litter and flytipping strategy; Supporting the removal of marine litter from the marine and coastal environment; and reducing marine and coastal based sources of litter.
Both of these surveys are important to the Harbour and to the industries using the Harbour, but also to the wider community, so please, if you have an interest in either or both of these topics, take some time to complete the consultations.
Finally for this month, we are looking at implementing some traffic calming measures on the road in front of the West Bay net stores, and we would remind anyone using this road that they should do so with caution as there may be fishermen working at gear outside the stores.
Jacqueline McDonell
