THE Renfrew Rose and the Yoker Swan are up for sale — or lease — in a move that ends more than five centuries of pedestrian ferries across the Clyde.
Neither of the 26-year-old vessels which currently plies the river's time-honoured Renfrew-Yoker crossing complies with disability legislation.
Both ferries were also acknowledged two years ago to be close to their sell-by date and in imminent nee
d of replacement.
But their future was apparently secured in autumn 2008 after a £60,000 survey looked closely at social, transport, economic and environmental issues.
Among its findings were that the prohibitive expense of building and maintaining a footbridge ruled that out as a means of maintaining the transport link between the south and north banks of the Clyde.
Longer term the vessels were still to be pensioned off and replaced by a single, smaller ferry (with capacity for about a dozen people) to reduce costs and provide a more environmentally-efficient service.
At the time, Gordon Maclennan, Strathclyde Partnership for Transport's assistant chief executive, concluded that "continuing the historic service with a new ferry was definitely the most appropriate option".
It was reported that this replacement vessel, plus necessary adaptations to the slipways on both sides of the river would involve an initial outlay of £1 million then an annual subsidy of about £400,000.
However SPT which operates the ferries later did a U-turn and in January announced it would be scrapping the ferry service altogether at the end of this month as part of a £2.5 million cost-cutting exercise.
The quango has since been racked by scandal over almost exactly the same amount of money being spent on advertising, consultants and trips abroad — disclosures which saw senior executives stand down.
In February the Stagecoach transport group held a two-day trial at the ferry crossing with a £70,000 Dutch-made amphibious bus which can carry 50 passengers.
The company's Brian Souter enthused about "an exciting transport project" to connect "two important local communities".
The company has yet to confirm whether it is going ahead with the proposal to link Braehead and Clydebank and via the Renfrew- Yoker crossing.
Meanwhile, politicians have this week been vocal in urging SPT to withhold a golden handshake from the quango's former chief executive, Ron Culley, who resigned last month.
