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

7. 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

10. 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 10^th. 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