MINUTES

APRIL PUBLIC MEETING OF TIREE COMMUNITY COUNCIL (TCC)

7 pm 15 April 2026

Online and streamed on the Tiree Community Council Facebook page

1. Present: Gerard McGoogan (chair), Dr John Holliday, John MacCaskill and Frances Khetrat. There were no members of the public on the Zoom call, but 690 people had viewed the meeting on Facebook (FB) by the following morning.
2. Apologies: Cllr Willie Hume and Tim Arkless
3. Current election period: the chair reminded the meeting that TCC had to remain non-party-political.
4. Declarations of interest: GMG and JH were Directors of Solar, which used the Scarinish phone box. JH is a Director of the Hynish Trust.
5. Minutes of last meeting: these were accepted as a true record. Proposed JMC, seconded GMG.
6. Matters arising (not covered later):

• Bike stands and community garden: GMG will write a letter about these matters this week after the holiday period
• Increase in spending on community councils: we still have not heard how this will be divided up. We want it to be divided equally between the 56 community councils in Argyll and Bute because our fixed costs are all the same
• Heating oil and LPG: GMG has looked into this. GMG has looked into this. About 30% of Tree households use heating oil. None use LPG, although this may be an underestimate as the households using LPG for heatingare often in caravans which may not have been trecorded in the Census. The Scottish Emergency Heating Oil Scheme (which does include LPG) was launched on 1 April under Advice Direct Scotland. This amounts to £300 now and up to £300 every three months. A team from Argyll and Bute Council (ABC) were due to come over with information about grants for insulation but it was cancelled due to ferries. The visit will be rescheduled.
• JH is still working on a campaign about the difficulties getting patient travel tickets through the Health Board. He will wait until after the Scottish Parliamentary election, so that he can involve the new MSP

7. Correspondence:

• We had received correspondence about the difficulty in arranging Openreach home visits with the ferry disruption meaning that engineers have had to leave the island at short notice
• Belinda Ruthven, Resilience Officer for Argyll and Bute Council, is organising a meeting for island key workers on Wednesday 29 April
• A patient discharged from hospital was unable to get a booking in Oban on a re-scheduled ferry sailing. We raised this with Stephen Wood, the CalMac Area Manager, who told us about the CalMac medical priority protocol. The details of this can be found at

 https://www.calmac.co.uk/en-gb/travel/urgent-medical-appointments/#/howitworks

We had been unaware of this. We have passed the link on to the surgery and will put the link on the TCC FB page

• Police Scotland report for March: 6 calls and 2 crimes
• We received a letter from Screen Argyll about a new youth programme called PlanetYouth. We have written to support this, and will try to attend its first meeting

8. Meeting reports: this month has been quieter. GMG and JH went to the Climate Action Group meeting. GMG had met the Deputy First Minister about communications resilience.
9. Transport update (JMC):

• There has been an unprecedented level of correspondence with travelling members of the public and business owners about the inadequacy of the current ferry service. We are grateful for this correspondence, as it is a good way to understand what is happening in the community. We are in almost daily communication with CalMac. The Transport Forum had a useful meeting with Stephen Wood, Area Manager. The Forum has decided to work constructively within the system, rather than embarking on media campaigns. There has been some criticism of this low-key approach
• The timetable next winter is being discussed at the moment. Coll CC have proposed a slightly earlier Monday sailing for next winter. The Tiree hauliers seem to be happy with this. The number of missed ferries in winter has been a problem. CalMac are currently looking into the possibility of offering a fortnightly ‘freight run’ Oban-Tiree-Oban’ which would be separate from the published Winter Timetable should it be deemed a viable proposal
• We have had the Isle of Mull on the run for longer than expected. Because this vessel has a closed car deck, there are difficulties carrying fuel on it. CalMac have been in touch to see if this was causing a problem on Tiree
• We hope to get the Clansman and the usual deck-space pilot back this Saturday
• The Scottish Government has announced a £10 million Business Resilience Fund to compensate for the ferry disruptions. GMG will correspond with Mull, Iona and Iona bodies about a joint representation to the Scottish Government on how this might work
• CalMac local staff have had a difficult period, and we are very grateful for their professionalism
• JMC and GMG me the Highlands and Islands Airports CEO and Chair. They are looking at opening up some additional car parking space. The airport buildings will get painted this summer. We thanked the local HIAL and Loganair staff for their excellent service
• Luke Farajallah, the CEO of Loganair, is visiting Tiree on 30 April
• Stephen Wood from CalMac is meeting the Transport Forum in person on 29 April. This clashes with the Resilience meeting (see above) so JMC will change this to the evening. SW will make a presentation on the carriage of electric vehicles
• TCC will start lobbying for a new Tiree-Coll ferry after the elections. This process takes many years but it needs to start soon

10. Tiree library re-instatement: this will re-open. The job has been advertised, although it is only 8 hours a week. There is some building work needed at the school.
11. Tiree dental service: we had a letter from a patient who had been waiting years for an appointment at the Tiree surgery. We asked for other peoples’ experience on our FB page, and got a huge response, with some terrible stories. One person said they had been waiting five years for an appointment. Many children have never had their check-ups. The service used to be one week a month, but was cut back to two between-plane days every two weeks. The Oban plane only comes 55% of the time. We wrote to Gill Rees, the Assistant Chief Dental Officer for NHS Highland, asking for a meeting. She is making enquiries and will get back to us.
12. Consultation on Local Development Plan 3: this considers local land use. We do not have the resources to respond to this fully and properly, and decided not to put in a response.
13. Mortuary: there has been representation that the Mortuary on the airfield is not fit for purpose. We have tackled this issue before without success. It was not clear who owned the building or who had responsibility for it. JH will make some enquiries.
14. Broadband and R100: Openreach were on the island last week. Their engineers will be on the island until June, but ferry problems have made their operations difficult. There had been a public meeting, which had been well attended. Tiree Broadband closes on 1 June. The recent break in the subsea cable in Orkney shows that there are still problems getting timely information out to islanders. If or when this happens on Tiree again, we will not have Tiree Broadband to rescue 150 customers.
15. Telephone boxes: the boxes at Caolas, Scarinish, Mannal, Balephuil, Heylipol, Middleton, Balevullin and Cornaigmore are all now taken, leaving only Kenovay and Crossapol to remove. GMG will contact SSEN abut disconnecting them.
16. Recent planning applications: external signs around the lighthouse shore station. We had no objections.
17. AOCB: we still have the Keder house from the community garden. GMG will enquire about putting it to use.
18. Date and format of next meeting: this will be in person on Wednesday 20 May. JH will contact Matthew Shaw from Police Scotland, who wished to attend.
19. [Note after the meeting: we did not deal with community transport, as we had intended. We will do this at the next meeting.]

The meeting ended at 8.20pm.

Dr John Holliday 16 April 2026