TWO new CalMac ferries are still a long way off completion, MSPs have been told.
GMB union convener Alex Logan said the ferries’ construction became like a “stand-off at the OK Corral”, with the operator and Ferguson Marine shipyard coming to “loggerheads”.
Logan told Holyrood’s Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee that four and a half years on from the contracts for the ships being signed, they were still “significantly less than half-built”.
Tim Hair, turnaround director of Ferguson Marine Engineering Limited (FMEL), added design elements of the boats “have still not been approved” by all parties.
READ MORE: CalMac ferries to offer bilingual Gaelic and English service
MSPs heard evidence as part of an inquiry into the work on the CalMac vessels at the Port Glasgow shipyard, which was taken into public ownership by the Scottish Government last year.
Hair informed MSPs it would cost an additional £110 million to finish the vessels.
“It is a very significant number but it is a number that has been based on as rigorous an assessment as we’ve been able to carry out,” he said.
Logan added while the awarding of the £97 million contract in 2015 had been a “big boost” for the yard, he had had concerns about whether the site in Port Glasgow was large enough to build two ships of that size at the same time.
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