Work is progressing well.  The order books are open so folk should now be placing orders and it will be fulfilled by our teams in early May.

We have more resource on the island from the 22nd of April who will be focusing on survey work for the approx. 200 premises we have live so a plan can be in place for the folk who are served under ground.

Once people place an order with the internet provider of their choice you will have an appointment booked in for Openreach to attend the property and bring the cable from the closest part of the network to your premise wall.   Its important for people to understand the following…

If people want a quick installation, then they should place their order asap.  We want to fulfil as many orders as we can while we have additional resource on the island as mentioned above.
If you are in a contract and intend to stay with your current provider for ultrafast then you should be able to upgrade without a cancellation fee.
You can check to see if full fibre is available to you by going to www.openreach.com  and using our postcode checker.

Any individual issues please ask folk to reach out to me directly and I will get them resolved asap.

I’ll have a wider build update by this Friday which I will share with yourself and get a post up on social media.

Stephen Chambers

Booked Utilisation Oban-Coll-Tiree Analysis

PDF shows how full the ferry is on weekends sailings for July-September 2025. This data was provided by Calmac on the 3rd March after a FOI request.

Note the numbers do not include the Desk Pilot. Also note this scheme is not operational for some ferries around TMF.

The plan is to updates these numbers regularly and a FOI request has been submitted for the next batch.

Topic: TCC’s April Meeting 9th April 7PM online only
Time: Apr 9, 2025 07:00 PM London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7935569301?pwd=qeHEdMGGKZBvGdyw7cUVUi0LV9f57z.1&omn=88246278890

Meeting ID: 793 556 9301
Passcode: jrHrb1

Letter from Terry Williams (Calmac) describing additional delay on the return of the Clansman. Affected travellers are being informed.


From: Terry Williams

I am getting in touch to let you know that, unfortunately, we’ve been advised the drydock operator requires an extra six days to complete MV Hebrides overhaul. This is to complete outstanding repairs to the bow visor and stern ramp. This means the vessel is now expected to exit annual overhaul on Sunday 20 April and return to service on Tuesday 22 April.


This means MV Lord of the Isles will continue to cover Coll, Tiree & Colonsay services whilst MV Clansman covers MV Hebrides. It also means Lochboisdale services continue to be provided by MV Isle of Mull with her reduced passenger limit. The impact of this is that the current deployment plan will remain in place for longer, with MV Isle of Mull continuing to provide your direct service via Oban.



With MV Finlaggan departing for overhaul on Tuesday 22 April, there will now be no time for MV Lord of the Isles to provide any services to South Uist and she will immediately head to Islay. When MV Finlaggan returns to service on Wednesday 14 May, MV Lord of the Isles will resume the service between Mallaig-Lochboisdale, the MV Clansman will resume your service when MV Hebrides is back on Tuesday 22 April.



This situation has been compounded by the delays – which we know are due to issues outside of anyone’s control – with the delivery of MV Isle of Islay to service Islay. Were she here on time, we’d have had an additional major vessel in the fleet for a large part of winter and would not need to deploy one of MV Isle of Arran or MV Lord of the Isles to Islay during MV Finlaggan’s overhaul.



Furthermore, the intermediate shafts on MV Caledonian Isles require additional machining and the vessel’s return date has been revised to the end of May. Her ongoing absence also impacts our deployment options. I know there will be concern about MV Caledonian Isles and understand there may be a lack of confidence in when she’ll be back. However, I can provide some reassurance that we have a high-level of confidence in the vessel returning and being reliable when she does. We’ve taken a thorough, diligent approach to these repairs and inspecting progress as we go. The extensive steel repairs that we’ve carried out have all been inspected before and after the vessel has been floated up – as she has been several times to let other vessels in and out of the dry dock. There are no signs of further structural movement or deformation, giving us confidence that the root cause of the previous deformation has been addressed. With the shaft line, we’ve been checking every element of the shaft line from the engine to the propeller and have identified and remedied any issues as we go.



Kind Regards



Terry Williams

As Paul Ashworth of Live Argyll is coming tonight to discuss the status of Tiree’s library, we have move the agenda item to near the start.

Agenda for Tiree Community Council Meeting 12th Note: Meeting will be online only.
1. Welcome
2. Apologies Membership.
3. Minutes of last meeting
3a Tiree Library
4. Matters arising
5. Correspondence
6. Meeting reports
7. Transport update
8. A&BC budget
9. Moved to 3a Tiree Library
10. Visitor Levy
11. R100 update
12. Planning
13. AOCB
14. Date of next meeting 9th April 2025

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/7935569301?pwd=qeHEdMGGKZBvGdyw7cUVUi0LV9f57z.1&omn=81204339158

Meeting will also be streamed on our facebook page.

2025-02-18 SSEN Tiree Community Council Presentation

Copy of slides from SSEN’s presentation on new Tiree-Coll cable.