FERGUSON'S owner Jim McColl is pursuing a Scottish Government-owned company for additional costs incurred in the construction of a new CalMac ferry.

Mr McColl says fellow Port Glasgow-based firm, Caledonian Marine Asset Ltd (CMAL), should foot the bill for 'genuine changes' which have had to be made to MV Glen Sannox.

The ferry is expected to be delivered more than a year later after a series of problems.

It's the first of two new vessels as part of a £97m order by government-owned CMAL, which is in charge of ships and harbours in the west of Scotland.

The Ferguson Marine owner, who described the ships as 'prototypes', said discussions with the company about the rising costs have been 'frustrating'.

In an interview with the BBC's Good Morning Scotland radio programme, Mr McColl said: "We have incurred significantly higher costs in the work we've had to do on these ferries, and we've been engaging with CMAL to discuss these costs.

"Maybe the best way to put it is that we've been frustrated in these discussions.

"We've been discussing it for over a year, and we have been funding that, so it's been using a lot of our capital.

"We've been funding it solely.

"Our view is that these have been genuine changes that have had to be made to the work we've been doing, and they're changes that ought to be incurred by the buyer.

"I believe that perhaps more design development work could have been done prior to the invitation to tender going out, rather than dealing with multiple things that are arising as we got into the build process.

"But we're working diligently through that."

Ferguson's won the £97m order three years ago and work on Glen Sannox began in February 2016.

The ship was launched last November and was due to be completed in May this year but there has been a series of construction issues, including the replacement of the bow.

The Telegraph contacted CMAL for a response.