Isle of Luing's Participation Request Process - Cuan Ferry Timetable

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Luing Community Council (LCC) – Participation Request to improve the Cuan ferry
timetable – note for OLI Community Planning Group meeting, August 14th 2024
Early in 2023, Luing Community Councillors heard about the statutory Participation Request
(PR) process during a training course run by Argyll & Bute Councils’ Community
Development team. In July 2023, after a joint meeting with senior Councillors and Council
Officers, our Participation Request was formally accepted, with the intended outcome of ‘an
improved ferry timetable, which better meets the needs of the island community, especially
those using it for education, work, business, health and care’. 
In Jan/Feb 2024, LCC , in collaboration with the Council and as part of the PR process,
undertook a ferry users’ survey. We sent a report of the survey findings to the Council’s
marine operations officers in April, following its acceptance at a community meeting. We
followed up with further attempts to obtain a response from the marine officers and we
contacted other Council officials and a Councillor responsible for transport. 
To date we have not received any response to the survey findings, and the PR process has
been at a standstill. 
After intervention by a Community Development officer, we have finally been offered one
date for a meeting with the marine operations team on August 30th.
We are aware that the marine operations officers have other responsibilities and demands
on their time, and we have accepted – as a consequence – that the Participation Request
process may take longer than the timescale set by the legislation. Luing community has been
exceptionally patient given the expectations of a structured, statutory process to deliver
improvements to a service that affect the lives and livelihoods of everyone on the island. We
understood from the beginning the constraints facing the Cuan ferry service, with an ageing
vessel and limited resources, and that any improvements would need to take these into
account. The marine operations manager appeared keen to undertake the PR process as this
fitted with his proposal to establish a permanent ferry users’ forum, which we supported
wholeheartedly. 
LCC and Luing community went into the PR process with positive hopes about collaborating
with the Council and about the outcomes. The high response rate to the survey is a
demonstration of the community’s engagement. The long-drawn-out process, the lack of
response to the survey and the difficulty of obtaining responses from the Council officers
have been exceptionally disappointing. Luing residents and businesses are the ferry’s most
important customers and deserve to be treated in a manner consistent with the Council’s
Customer Service Strategy, Charter and Plan 2024-2034.
We still hold out hope that the process can be restarted, and the Council’s agreement to
engage in the PR process respected. We think the PR process in general has the potential to
structure Council-Community collaboration to improve services, but it needs the active
support and engagement of Councillors and Officers to achieve the desired outcomes.
August 6 2024