Author Archives: John Holliday

Agenda online February community council meeting

FEBRUARY PUBLIC MEETING

TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

7 pm Wednesday 11 February 2026

Online meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82548077827?pwd=58FxlBwYnb65umg6FxOwEyR5EkNG9U.1

Meeting ID: 825 4807 7827
Passcode: jrHrb18

  1. Welcome
  2. Apologies
  3. Declarations of interest
  4. Minutes of last meeting
  5. Matters arising (not covered later)
  6. Correspondence
  7. Meeting reports
  8. Transport updates
  9. Current status of Tiree Library
  10. Broadband and R100
  11. Telephone boxes: completing project before May
  12. Planning applications since last meeting
  13. Argyll and Bute councillors’ reports
  14. AOCB
  15. Date and format of next meeting

Official dates of subsea breakage.

A lot of folks have been having problems getting the correct compensation from their ISPs if any at all. You should normally have received around £410.

Some may be due less if the ISP gave mobile (4G) fallback. And some may be due more if the fault lingered on.

The idea of this post is you can point your ISP to back-up your claim.

For those who did not get the correct amount of compensation the first section gives the correct dates. For those who were refused compensation because it “was out with our control” the second section quotes the “ISPs” industry’s code of conduct that forbids ISPs doing this.

  • For those who were offered compensation less than £400 (often around £200)

This is probably because the ISP is using the wrong dates. Often the 7th to 31st Of October. They should be using the 3rd of October to 18th November. Allowing for excluded days this works out as 41 days * £9.98 =  £409.18.

The correct Start date:

We have now managed to get Openreach to confirm that broadband went down when power was lost on the 3rd of October.

“When power was restored on 7th October, it was then discovered that the subsea cable was impacted which effected full fibre customers. “

It was at this point that Openreach issued an area fault to all ISPs. This is why some ISPs wrongly use the 7th of October, when they should be using the 3rd.

The correct Fix Date

Some ISPs are using the 31st of October as a fix date. This was the date that Openreach gave an update. The fix was not till the 18th of November (just before the Scotland/Denmark game). BT emergency team have now acknowledged this via Jenni Minto’s team:

“BT advise that the repair successfully concluded on 18 November 2025 and that internet service providers will have been made aware of that. On that basis I would expect that 18 November is the date that would be used to determine the level of compensation due.”

ISPs avoiding payment of automatic compensation

Some islanders have been told that no compensation is due because it was out with the ISP’s  control. However, section 40 of Ofcom’s industry-code-of-practice-for-automatic-compensation states that ISPs cannot avoid compensation by saying it was not their fault.

“40. Subject to the exceptions in paragraph 39 above, the Communications Provider does not
avoid payment of automatic compensation if the issue was caused by an event outside of
the customer’s or its own control This type of event would include (but would not be limited
to) extreme weather, strikes and third-party acts.”

The document can be found here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/uncategorised/98684—automatic-compensation/associated-documents/industry-code-of-practice-for-automatic-compensation-2024-v1.pdf?v=392135

If ISPs claim the are not liable, direct them to the above document.

Meanwhile we are trying to get the ISPs to sort this out automatically as is their duty. Progress is slow.

 

 

Minutes Tiree Community Council January meeting

MINUTES OF TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL (TCC) JANUARY PUBLIC MEETING

7pm Wednesday 14 January 2026

Tiree Trust Conference Room and on Zoom

  1. Present: Gerard McGoogan (chair), Dr John Holliday, John MacCaskill, Frances Khetrat and Tim Arkless. Police Constable Rinath De Vetter attended. There were two members of the public on Zoom. We were unable to stream live to Facebook, but the recording was put up there the following day.
  1. Apologies: there were none.
  2. Opening remarks: GMG felt that we should continue to use Zoom, as we still had 10 months’ subscription left. There were some advantages to using Teams, and the next council can consider these. The Holyrood elections will be on 7 May. TCC are meant to remain a(party)political. The last day for voter registration is 20 April. The next election for TCC will be in August, so our last meeting is likely to be in June (five more meetings).
  3. Declarations of interest: FK lives in Pier View.
  4. Minutes of last meeting: JMC proposed, FK seconded.
  5. Matters arising (not covered later):
  • Matters that are resolved by TCC cannot be revisited for six months
  • There is a national consultation about EV cars and a possible new mileage tax at MOT stations on the mainland. This could be very expensive for islanders. GMG has responded to our MP
  • Business Resilience Plan applications: this scheme has now closed. At least one Tiree company was rejected because its ‘employees’ were self-employed. GMG will ask HIE in April to see how much money Tiree had received
  1. Correspondence:
  • Bus stop at Pier View blocking view of oncoming traffic on Pier Road: JH had been to the site, and could confirm the problem. He had discussed the matter with John MacDonald, a director of WHHA. He was aware of the problem and proposed putting up a mirror on the other side of the road for three months, and then reviewing. He pointed out that the present siting had been their third choice. JH will chase this up in May, and FK will monitor comments from Pier View. We may need to involve Highways to ask for additional signage on the road. There is currently no special police constable in post
  • Kate Forbes, the Deputy First Minister is coming to Tiree in March to discuss resilience
  • There had been an updated Risk Assessment for the Tiree pier. The only medium risks are contact between the ferry and divers, and snapped ropes
  • Police report for November: 4 calls and 0 crimes
  1. Meeting reports: JH had attended the January Mull CC meeting. There was nothing to report.
  2. Transport updates (JMC):
  • We have had the Isle of Mull for a month. Her slower speeds meant that arrival times in Oban were delayed. This led to passengers missing train and bus connections. CalMac acknowledged their mistake and had provided a relief. They will try to remember about this problem in future
  • There was a large meeting last week chaired by Jenni Minto about the ‘eroding’ air service from Oban. Passenger numbers have fallen due to the perceived unreliability. Costs have risen, the service provider is stretched in other areas (Shetland and Uist), and there is no more money. Coll and Colonsay would like to change the days of service
  • JMC and GMG are meeting the Transport Minister next Thursday at 1500 for 30 minutes (15 minutes for Tiree, 15 for Coll) about the issues with our ferry. It is difficult to get any changes because ‘cost neutrality’ and our link with Colonsay. Our new ferry is not due until 2045
  • Since the New Year, Loganair are telling passengers who they cannot get to Tiree to make their own accommodation arrangements. JMC will complain to Loganair about this
  • Next summer, the vessel will have a weekly 8-hour maintenance period in port. This will impact the sailings. Summer bookings are already open. The exact days have not been fixed. The Oban pier is also having some work done on it next summer. The Tiree pier office and marshalling area are scheduled to be replaced by CMAL this year. Work may start in the spring and will last a year. Funding is not certain yet, however, and this project may not happen this year or at all. Our summer sailings are likely to be severely disrupted
  • 50% of the Barra leg sailings were lost last year
  • The Island Connectivity questionnaire closes at the end of the month. The address is https://arcg.is/qOzez0. JH will post again on FB
  • The banked flights for key events in summer 2026 have been fixed
  1. Tiree Library: Argyll and Bute Council (ABC) told LiveArgyll (LA) last June that they were quite sympathetic to their plight, and asked for a new budget. ABC have now told LA, however, that there is no additional money, and, in fact, last year’s deferred cut of 15% on LA was being reinstated. ABC also told them not to close any libraries because the closures had been unpopular. LA has a new chair. The old music room in the Cornaigmore School is still lying unused. GMG and JH will write to the new LA chair and our councillors to find out what they know about this.
  1. Resilience following Storm Amy and R100:  Phyl Meyer from the Trust is working on a new emergency plan for the island. GMG has writte to Heather Wolfe, Jenni Minto’s secretary with a report. The automatic compensation for the outage dates from the 10th. It is worth doing this, although it can be a bit of a slog. Compensation should be around £400-460 for some people.
  2. R100: BT Openreach still has teams on the island and are working through their orders. Crossapol will be opening up soon.
  3. Infrastructure: the fire at the Baptist church and the insolvency of both hotels: the fire was noted with great sadness, as it will affect both the congregation and the wider community (exercise classes, the art show, for example). The company owning the two hotels has gone into liquidation with debts of £120,000. At least one of these has been re-acquired by the previous owner. It appears that the drinks licence is currently held by the liquidators. This was also a huge loss to parts of the community. GMG and JH will write to the current owner (Tiree Pizza Co.) to ask what the future holds. There is apparently a holding webpage announcing that Tiree Beach Hotel self-catering will be coming soon.
  4. Planning: there was one provisional application, PPP25/02118/PPP. This was for access to a new dwelling house site in West Hynish. We had nothing to add.
  5. Councillors’ reports: there were none.
  6. Police Report: PC De Vitter had no specific points to report. We thanked her for attending.
  7. AOCB: TCC finances. GMG reported that he has paid himself back £477.30. TCC has a bank account but no card, so he himself has paid many of the expenses (for example, our Zoom account, penalty for copyright infringement and hire of the hall). TCC expenditure is currently more than our income, and our projected end-of-year balance is around £360. The ABC grant to community councils has remained at the same level for almost a decade. An increase has been discussed, but unlikely in the present climate.
  8. Date and format of next meeting: this will be on 11 February and will be online.

The meeting closed at 8.20 pm.

Dr John Holliday | 07786 496 275 | doc.holliday@tireecommunitycouncil.co.uk

Update on work at Pier

Terminal

Please find below an update from CM assets on the new Pier building and marshalling area: (Note option 1 was chosen”)

“I have provided some further information for you below that you can communicate back to the Community.

I appreciate that it is not obvious from the presentation documentation that is on the project webpage, however Option 1 was selected to take forward to the detailed design stage and is what will be built.

Please see attached the most recent general arrangement plan that formed part of the tender documentation.

Due to the scale of the construction works, the tender process was extended until after the Christmas period, with the following updated timescales:

Key project milestones

·         Project tender issued: Q3 2025

·         Contract awarded: Feb/Mar 2026

·         Construction starts: Anticipated Spring 2026, subject to funding approval

·         Construction duration: Approximately 12 months

In your response to being worried about “subject to funding approval”, due to the size and anticipated budget estimates for construction, we will still need to apply to Transport Scotland to approve funding through our business case justification process, once the tender process has been completed and we know how much the construction contract will be.”

 

For more info go to:

Tiree Terminal Works’ detailed design completed as tender process begins

 

JANUARY PUBLIC MEETING 7pm Wednesday 14 January 2026

TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

JANUARY PUBLIC MEETING 7pm Wednesday 14 January 2026

Meeting will be inperson (at Trust offices), on Zoom and streamed to our Facebook account where it will remain for 30 days. We will delete our copy of the video once the minutes have been signed off.

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89225224846?pwd=DRamSWl2yRIHGCbvCcHslhGS9KrrhE.1

Meeting ID: 892 2522 4846

Passcode: jrHrb1

 

  1. Welcome
  2. Apologies
  3. Declarations of interest
  4. Minutes of last meeting
  5. Matters arising (not covered later):
  6. Correspondence: bus stop at Pier View; police special constable
  7. Meeting reports
  8. Transport updates
  9. Tiree Library
  10. Broadband
  11. Infrastructure: the Baptist church and hotels
  12. Planning
  13. Councillors’ reports
  14. AOCB
  15. Date and format of next meeting

Minutes December 2025 TCC meeting

MINUTES                                             TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

DECEMBER PUBLIC MEETING        5pm Wednesday 10 December 2025

Conference Room, Trust Offices In person

  1. Present: Dr John Holliday, John MacCaskill, Frances Khetrat and Tim Arkless. There were no members of the public.
  2. Election of chair: JH was unanimously elected chair for the meeting.
  3. Apologies: Gerard McGoogan, Cllrs Amanda Hampsey and Willie Hume
  4. Complaint from Councillor Amanda Hampsey: we agreed unanimously that Gerard had not breached the Code of Conduct for Community Councillors as laid out in the Model Complaints Procedure governing our community council. JH will write to AH to this effect. The learning points are that:
  • We will reach out to set up an informal face-to-face meeting with Cllr Hampsey as soon as possible to turn the page and restore a good working relationship
  • Despite our success in reaching a large, new online audience, we will consider whether we should revert to face-to-face meetings without Zoom or Facebook links, at least for a while
  • We will explore training opportunities for the whole community council in chairing meetings and participating online
  • We will divide the work of the community council more fairly, so that Gerard does not have to carry so much of the burden
  1. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising: proposed JMC and seconded TA. Item 16 had been completed. Items 13 and 17 were carried over.
  2. Correspondence:
  • Library update: there had been an Argyll and Bute Council meeting with Live Argyll on 25 November. We have had no update from this. The Council budget work preparation starts in January 2026. We hope extra funding for the library will be found. A room at the school, prepared to take the library, is still unused
  • There was concern about the EV mileage budget changes, as there is no MOT station on the island. We agreed that this was unlikely to be a problem for several years
  • A new Scheme for the Establishment of Community Councils will come into effect in August 2026 after the next elections
  • After a concerted lobbying effort, the Islands Business Resilience Plan has been extended to include Tiree. There were some restrictions, however, and uptake has been slow so far. For example businesses need to have a turnover of £22,000. We will advertise this extension. JH will contact the Tiree Trust also
  1. District councillor reports: there were none.
  2. Aftermath of Storm Amy: JH and GMG with Mark Vale had attended a meeting called by the Argyll and Bute Council (ABC) emergency planning team. There was a need for a new emergency plan for Tiree. We agreed that TCC was not the appropriate body for this. The Trust currently do not have the resources either. ABC is coming out after the New Year for a further meeting. We will lobby for more resources for this work.
  3. Bus shelter belonging to West Highland Housing Association (WHHA) at Pier View: concerns have been expressed that this obstructs sight lines to the west along Pier Road, particularly when the sun is low and after rain. JH would find out who had had these concerns and direct them to WHHA in the first instance.
  4. Transport matters (JMCC):
  • The Argyll, Lochaber, Skye and Small Isles Ferries Group had an on-line meeting on 4 December 2025. The meeting heard about CalMac’s fairly new ‘Customer Satisfaction’ Team report, which, in my opinion dominated too much of the meeting, and the chair needs to restrict this in future. The Tiree Pier Ferry Traffic Lanes/Terminal Upgrade Project is now out to tender with work estimated to start summer/autumn 2026
  • CalMac Summer Timetable (2026) Community Consultation process has now ended. Tiree had raised three issues:
  • Request for our Barra leg day to change from the current Wednesday to a Thursday, to move away from two consecutive back-to-back late sailings back to Oban. Request rejecteddue to complaints from Islay and Colonsay and impacts on ‘Crew Change-over Day’ logistics. Both Tiree and Coll community transport reps will meet soon with CalMac management to pursue this matter
  • Request for additional double-sailing days on Sundays over nine weeks of the summer school holidays. Request rejectedas this does not comply with CalMac’s ‘cost-neutral’ stance for additional ferry capacity
  • Request for a re-alignment of the double-rotation sailing on Saturdays back to the dates around the Scottish and English school holidays. The request was approved
  • The CalMac summer timetable 2026 for Oban-Coll-Tiree was published on the CalMac website today. It ‘goes live’ for the public to make bookings on 17 December
  • There is a meeting arranged of the Argyll Air Services (Oban-Coll-Colonsay-Tiree) on 5 January 2026 involving Scottish Parliament reps, Transport Scotland, Hi-Trans, HIAL, Argyll and Bute Council officers and councillors, HEBS Airways, and community reps from Coll/Colonsay/Tiree. This meeting will discuss short-comings in the air-service to the island airports under the Argyll Air Services PSO. JMC will attend
  • CalMac have confirmed this week in their newly published Vessel Deployment, Replacement and Disposal Plan effective from Q1 2027. The Oban-Coll-Tiree ferry route shall principally be served by the MV Hebrides. JMC has sought clarity from the CalMac Area Manager (Oban) on whether the Hebrides will have any refurb work done prior to it serving our ferry route, as it is an end-of-operational-life vessel, and also on what shall be the contingency/reserve vessel
  1. Planning:
  • 02/12/2025/PP new house at Ainshval, Cornaigmore
  • 25/01619/PP re-submission of new house in Kirkapol
  • 25/01801/PP ground mounted solar panels at Business Centre, Crossapol

None of these applications needed to be considered under TCC planning policy

  1. Date of next meeting: 14 January in person only. It was suggested an earlier time might be more suitable. We will consider this at out next agenda meeting

Dr John Holliday 11 December 2025

 

 

 

Island Connectivity Plan survey

Islands Connectivity Plan – CNA – Oban Services Survey Poster

We have been sent some links for the Island Connectivity Plan survey.  We want to make sure as many people as possible get the chance to respond. This is an opportunity for islanders to have input on future island connections.

The Survey for these islands has gone live today, 10 December, and can be found at https://arcg.is/qOzez0

For further information on the Islands Connectivity Plan please see the following links :

Islands Connectivity Plan | Transport Scotland

Islands Connectivity Plan | Community Needs Assessments | Transport Scotland

Community Needs Assessment Methodology | Transport Scotland

Agenda Tiree Community Council December meeting

AGENDA

TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

DECEMBER PUBLIC MEETING

5pm Wednesday 10 December 2025

Conference Room, Trust Offices

  1. Welcome
  2. Choice of chair
  3. Apologies
  4. Complaint from Councillor Amanda Hampsey:

‘I am writing to you today in your capacity as secretary to Tiree Community Council to raise a formal complaint regarding the conduct of the Chair of Tiree Community Council, Gerard McGoogan. Over a period of recent months, I have experienced a pattern of obstructive, rude and dismissive behaviour from the Chair, both in written correspondence and during meetings of the Community Council. This conduct has at times created a hostile, intimidating and unprofessional atmosphere which undermines open and respectful participation. The most recent example occurred during an online meeting of the Community Council on Wednesday when the Chair muted my microphone while I was contributing to the discussion. This action was both embarrassing, unnecessary and inappropriate and served to prevent me from participating fully in the meeting, as demonstrated by the chair agreeing when asked, that he intended to silence me. Taken together, these behaviours are inconsistent with the standards set out in the Code of Conduct for Community Councillors which requires members, and particularly the Chair, to treat others with courtesy and respect and to conduct business in a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory manner. I therefore request that this matter be handled under Tiree Community Council’s formal complaints procedure.’

  1. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising
  2. Correspondence: including library, EV milage budget changes; new rules for community councils
  3. Reports of meetings: including resilience meeting; Guardian journalist; Islands Business Resilience Plan; Island Digital Connectivity; Outer Hebrides Climate Hub
  4. District councillor reports
  5. Aftermath of Storm Amy
  6. Bus shelter at Pier View
  7. Transport matters
  8. Planning
  9. AOCB