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

5. Minutes of last meeting and matters arising: proposed JMC and seconded TA. Item 16 had been completed. Items 13 and 17 were carried over.
6. 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

7. District councillor reports: there were none.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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

11. 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

12. 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