MINUTES
TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL
7pm 15 October 2025
An Talla and on Zoom
- Present: Gerard McGoogan (chair), Dr John Holliday, John MacCaskill, Tim Arkless, Frances Khetrat and two members of the public in person; Cllr Amanda Hampsey online and 6 members of the public. Facebook: there had been 766 views by the next day.
- Apologies: Cllr Andrew Kain. Notice of the meeting had gone out late due to the loss of mobile and broadband connectivity last week.
- Welcome: it had been planned that the meeting would be online only, but it had been changed to in-person after Storm Amy. The meeting was recorded (audio only to reduce bandwidth) and livestreamed to Facebook. This recording will be deleted after the next meeting. Due to the communication challenges and the last-minute change in venue, there were repeated audibility and feedback interruptions during the meeting and to the recording. These made it difficult for arrendees to follow some contributions.
- Minutes of September public meeting: proposed FK; seconded TA
- Approved minutes of August public meeting: Cllr AH stated that these minutes contained the statement, ‘We feel we have been let down by councillors on this issue [the loss of the Tiree library].’ She pointed out that previous TCC minutes show that she had reported back several times on this matter. We accepted this point.
- Storm Amy: this had not been classified as a ‘Red Alert’ for Tiree because of our small population, not because the storm was predicted to be less significant. Wind speeds of at least 102 mph were said to have been recorded on Tiree. A number of caravans and sheds had been destroyed but also power, the internet, 4G, the police radio network and broadcast radio went down on night of 3 October after the storm. The few copper landlines left feed into the microwave mast at the exchange and continued to work. Initially, the problem was thought to be flooding and power loss at a site on Mull. Once that had been sorted, however, it became apparent that there was another fault in the fibre connection between Mull and Tiree. Both EE and Vodafone masts had also been disabled. The Tiree Trust had been able to contact our MSP, who lobbied senior Scottish Government ministers. TCC had been able to do an interview with the BBC and the Oban Times while a councillor was in Glasgow. A specialist had diagnosed a cable failure around 600 m offshore from the Scarinish exchange. Openreach then sent over a specialist team of four engineers and a number of Starlink satellite dishes on the 10th. Over the next three days, Tiree Broadband (TBB) was connected to Starlink; the two shops and the surgery were also connected by TBB. The two EE mast were repaired next. Three hotspots were set up: at the Scarinish exchange, An Talla and Alan Stevenson House in Hynish (for the duration of the Tiree Wave Classic). The pier was due to be connected today (15th). The Scarinish post office is still waiting to be connected. The school, social services and Taigh an Rudha use a Swan network, which added another layer of complexity. At the time of the meeting, these still had no broadband. Now the main institutions have got some connectivity, attention is moving to connecting vulnerable households. Accessing a list of these has been difficult. The school, preparing for the return of pupils after the half-term break, will communicate with parents and pupils by the end of the week. We had suggested to Argyll and Bute Council (ABC) that they create another internet hub at the library, but there had been no reply to date. Cllr Hampsey will take this forward with ABC. The community council’s thanks go to: the SSEN engineers, both linesmen and the generating team; the medical practice, who continued to provide medical cover under trying circumstances; the BT Openreach Resilience Team for getting us up and running; the Coop and Bùth a‘ Bhaile for allowing shopping to continue on tick while the card readers were down; Calmac for continuing to run and for making space for emergency teams travelling to the island; the airport; the Coll community; and others too many to mention. In particular, Mark Vale and Rhoda Meek from the Trust have been magnificent. For example, it was these two who connected the Coop. Jenni Minto, MSP, visited today and was able to see the situation for herself. Her team has been very helpful. Cllr Hampsey has also talked to Rhoda and has been involved in the effort, particularly concerning the Home and the school. She had also raised the situation with Tim Eagle, MSP. We were grateful for this. Repair of the cable could take weeks or months. The company Subsea 7 have been awarded the contract to do the repair. The winter weather is likely to delay matters. A member of the public wanted to put on record the frustration Rhoda and Mark had experienced trying to get the scale of the problem on Tiree through to senior politicians and managers. Fortuitously, GMG had represented TCC at an emergency planning meeting a few weeks ago set up by the ABC Emergency Planning Team. There is a need for a multi-agency debrief at some point. TCC encourages feedback from the community, and we will develop ways to do this. This crisis would have been easier to manage with a Shared Rural Network, where phone companies share masts. However, SRNs have not yet been rolled out. BT/EE (but not Sky) customers can get a mini-hub with a month’s free data if you report that your connectivity is down. Tiree Broadband had planned to run the network down after the fibre programme, but, instead, they are expanding again, with all the extra costs that entails. The issues of a cap on the Starlink data use and who is going to bear the costs of the outage are still to be resolved. We agreed to write in support of Tiree Broadband if it seeks additional funding. The island will need greater resilience in future, but we will leave it to the experts to decide the best way.
- Matters arising (not covered later):
- ABC has decided not to proceed with the Visitor Levy at the moment, but to refer the matter back to the SG
- We have tried, without success, to make contact with the Mull, Ulva and Iona Sports Association to enquire about their efforts to take part in future Island Games
- TCC has written to our councillors asking ABC to re-open the library this financial year. There has been no reply
- TCC has written to Rona Campbell thanking her for her service in the Customer Services Point
- Mull Community Council has shared their emergency household leaflet
- There is set to be a meeting of the Tiree Youth Forum on 24 October. We plan to attend
- Correspondence:
- Complaint about traffic dangers from parking on the verge, particularly at the west end of Crossapol Beach. Was this covered by the Transport Act of 2019? We did some research and made some enquiries with the police. Parking on the verge of a road with no adjacent pavement was not covered by the Act, and anyway, this was not a police matter in Argyll and Bute
- TCC had received £452.90 from ABC. This was our annual grant
- Meeting reports
- GMG had met the Divisional Commander for Argyll and Bute, Chief Superintendent Gary I’ Anson
- GMG had attended the ABC Resilience meeting (online). We felt that an islands group would be more helpful
- Transport update:
- Tiree Harbour User Consultative Forum will be held on 13 November 2025 at 1100. We plan to arrend
- There will be a Tiree Transport Forum meeting on 30 October. Stephen Wood from CalMac will attend. There are no minutes from the last meeting
- We are still waiting for a reply to our letter to SG on the unfairness of the current Islands Business Resilience Fund
- There is a consultation on the 2026 Summer Timetable. However, there are constraints to any proposals, such as being cost neutral, creating no additional crew fatigue, and causing no impact on other islands. There seems little prospect of any meaningful change, despite CalMac being awarded the CHFS3 recently. There will be a joint meeting with Coll to explore our response to this. Another factor will be additional vessel maintenance at Oban pier next summer. This will reduce its time at sea. We hope to keep additional sailings at the time of the Tiree Wave Classic next year. This had been well used this year
- JMC has been working with Tiree Rural Development and Loganair to get a change in the plane times for future livestock sales to allow more dealers to attend
- The deck space mezz deck trial is ongoing
- The new pier terminal upgrade has been pushed back again to an unspecified date
- Vets: the consortium led by the Trust and crofters is working hard to provide some sort of service. The main problem currently is the treatment of small animals. No stone is being left unturned.
- Status of the two Tiree hotels: the company that owns the Lodge and Scarinish Hotels, Start Park, has gone into liquidation. There appear to be no directors. GMG has talked to the liquidators, who will come back to us once matters are clearer.
- Council Service Point at Crossapol: this has closed temporarily. Rona Campbell has moved to work for the social work department. We will post the briefing document on our website.
- Tiree Library: there was nothing new to add.
- R100: there was nothing new to add.
- Copyright infringement: TCC has been contacted by PA Media because we had used a copyright image, a ballot box, on our website several years ago We have removed this as well as other images. We agreed to pay them £159 in settlement.
- Planning:
- There was an application for a number of amendments to an application for a dwelling house at Port a’ Mhuilinn in Baugh. These did not fall within our planning policy
- ABC had started a consultation on self-build sites on ground they own in Balemartine and Crossapol. We had received correspondence from families in Balemartine emphasising the importance of the old school playground as a recreational facility for the children of the village. We will write to ABC asking how we can contribute to this effort
- AOCB: Cllr Hampsey asked to make a statement in the absence of a listed Councillors’ Report on the agenda: ‘I believe it is important that we have open and constructive discussion about the respective roles of the community council and councillors, and how we can strengthen partnerships between the two. As mentioned previously, I have personally found this relationship becoming increasingly challenging in recent times with a number of instances where comments and actions have been inappropriate. There is a real opportunity for the community to benefit from a strong and effective partnership. However, I do not believe that the community is currently realising the full benefits of collaborative working, as both a very strong advocate for the island and someone who holds formal responsibility for it within my role. I regularly undertake casework for local residents, and I am deeply committed to representing their interests. I will note at this point that there is enough to request a Community Council Conduct Review. However, I would personally prefer to build bridges and benefit the community rather than go down that route. With that in mind, I would like to explore a constructive path forward that promotes better working practices and delivers genuine benefits for the island. I would therefore like to invite all members of the community council to an in-person private members’ meeting with me to discuss how we can move forward positively together. And I do hope you take me up on the opportunity.’ We agreed to consider this request.
- Date of next public meeting: this is slated for 12 November if suitable for members.
Dr John Holliday
17 October 2025
