A contract to build two new small ferries for the River Clyde has gone to a shipyard in Merseyside
Privately-owned Western Ferries announced that Cammell Laird, based at Birkenhead, was preferred bidder to build the vessels for its Gourock to Dunoon Route.
The announcement is a disappointment for the nationalised Ferguson Marine shipyard which had hoped to win the contract.
The Port Glasgow based firm has no new orders beyond the CalMac ferry Glen Rosa, but is pursuing contracting work on the Type 26 frigates currently being built by BAE Systems in Glasgow.
Western Ferries currently operates four small ferries, two of them built by Ferguson’s in 2001 and 2003 when the yard was privately owned by the Dunnet family.
The other two ferries, Sound of Seil and Sound of Soay, were previously built by Cammell Laird in 2013.
Western Ferries last year carried 1.2 million passengers and 600,000 cars on the Gourock to Dunoon route and employs about 60 people.
