Final bill for Ferguson Marine ferries could hit £400m

Yard chief executive David Tydeman and chairman Andrew Miller were grilled by members of Holyrood’s net zero, energy and transport committee as the two ferries remain in troubled waters.

MV Glen Rosa has had her completion date pushed back from May 2025 to September next year, while MV Glen Sannox - still expected to be completed by the end of May this year - might not be handed over to operator Caledonian MacBrayne until mid-June.

The forecast cost for Glen Sannox, which was set at £142m last October, could also increase by a further £7m.

The bill for Glen Rosa is set at ‘not to exceed’ maximum of £150m.

In a letter reacting to the update, the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero & Energy, Mairi McAllan MSP, described the situation as 'inexcusable'.

Ms McAllan said: “These cost increases and delays to delivery dates are extremely disappointing and I share the frustrations that will be keenly felt across the Scottish Parliament and, of course, by the island communities who rely so much on ferry services.

“The former Cabinet Secretary, Neil Gray, had impressed upon the CEO that further delays and cost increases would be inexcusable and profoundly frustrating, and I fully support that sentiment.

“I will therefore be seeking an urgent conversation with the chair to agree next steps and set out my very clear expectations around the future governance of these programmes.”

Mr Tydeman told the committee: “The costs have risen on Glen Sannox by a small amount, two to four per cent since the numbers we had at this committee last October - £142m rising to between £145m and £149m.

“We will be practically complete in building the ship by the end of March, commissioning will run through in the months afterwards, mainly on the LNG system and the rest of the time in April/May will be handover trials and further testing and client acceptance trials.

“That hopefully moves handover to the end of May or into June. As I put in the letter you yesterday, we may need some time after the end of May for final handover and acceptance trials.

“On 802 [Glen Rosa] there’s a cascade impact of 801 [Glen Sannox] slipping back a few months and so we’ve moved the delivery date on 802 to no later than September '25.

“But as I set out to you in your visit [to the yard] on Friday, we are in a much stronger place on the second ship. We’ve learnt all the lessons from Glen Sannox, and I hope it’s a delivery challenge putting the ship together rather than learning and engineering and finishing the design work that we’ve had to do on Glen Sannox.

“We’re optimistic on 802 and we’ve set ourselves a different target of a cost not to exceed and an aspiration to do it for less than that and to be up to three months earlier than the September date.”

Mr Tydeman also faced questions about the level of investment the yard would require to bid for further work once the two ferries were delivered.

A request for £25m of investment to support modernisation was turned down by ministers last year.

It had been hoped that the £25m of investment would have made the yard more competitive when bidding for work.

Mr Tydeman told committee members that the yard could construct the small vessels using its current facilities, but added that they could become more efficient and cost-effective with the help of further investment.

He said: “We know that the yard needs to be improved and there are various levels that can be done.

“We are quite capable of building the next range of small ferries with the current facilities, we could do it better if we have some upgrade to the layout, to cranes and few of the facilities.

“The larger plan that was put on the table last year was for a much more sophisticated upgrade that would put us into a broader competitive position for building larger and more complex vessels in the future.

“If we improve our means of productivity throughput, we will be able to price more competitively.”