The announcement of a Scottish Government ferry order for the resurrected Ferguson shipyard in Port Glasgow, while welcome, is not unexpected ("Threatened shipyard wins ferry contract after buyout", The Herald, September 30).
The challenge is for the Port Glasgow site to deliver, on time and on budget, what is a planned follow-up to the two sister vessels already built there, with the possibility of the order for the fourth vessel in the series as a major incentive. However welcome the order is for Port Glasgow it most certainly is not "a real vote of confidence in shipbuilding on the Clyde", as described by Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon
That test is still to come with the placement by the Scottish Government of the order for CalMac's new Arran ferry and then for the new ships for the Mull service. A real vote of confidence in Clyde shipbuilding will be ensuring these much larger vessels are also constructed in Scotland.
Previous orders for CalMac ferries have been placed with yards in Poland and Germany, with the delivery of the new German-built ferry for the Stornoway crossing now being quite late. One of the reasons given for these overseas orders is that no Scottish yard would tender for the work. Will the same excuse be used for the new ships?
With Ferguson working on the small ferry, is BAe Systems with yards at Scotstoun and Govan not going to tender for the CalMac ferry work? Are these two yards simply content to survive off the lucrative UK Ministry of Defence warship contracts? Or is constructing a ferry for the Scottish Government of no interest to this multinational company?
It also needs to be recognised that modern ships do not need to be built in traditional shipyards. The UK's two new aircraft carriers are being assembled in a large drydock in Rosyth but the parts of that assembly have come by sea from many other areas around the UK, including Govan.
In addition to the Rosyth facility, a large disused drydock exists in Greenock while others, albeit in much poorer condition, still exist in Govan. Both are areas of high unemployment. Both are areas with long experience of marine construction. Is it beyond the capability of the Scottish Government, through agencies such as Scottish Enterprise, to attract a ship assembler to one of these drydocks with the various parts possibly being built at fabrication sites elsewhere in Scotland?
Ship assembly is the future of shipbuilding and Rosyth has demonstrated that the knowledge and skills to do that exist. With CalMac requiring many new vessels to replace its ageing fleet and the vast opportunities created by the need for vessels to construct and service Scotland's offshore renewables industry, the Scottish Government owes it both to those who voted Yes and to those who voted No to put serious effort into creating a 21st-century merchant ship capability in Scotland. That would be a real vote of confidence.
John Riddell,
49 Castlepark Drive,
Fairlie.
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