FARES for foot passengers and drivers would rocket if the Arran ferry was switched from Ardrossan to Troon, Peel Ports have warned.

Daily commuters who travel to work on the service would be hardest hit, with foot passengers forced to pay an extra £299 per year for a longer journey with poorer onward travel connections.

Meanwhile, a car and a driver would have to fork out an extra £1,674.40, while a car carrying passengers could face an additional annual bill of £2,493.40.

The distance from Troon-Brodick route is 18.29 miles compared to 13.2 miles for the existing Ardrossan-Brodick route and because of the Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) formula used to calculate ferry fares, that 38 per cent increase would see passengers facing huge extra costs.

Doug Coleman, project director of Peel Ports said: “Ardrossan to Brodick is unarguably the shortest and fastest route, but it’s also the cheapest. Local people would be facing a ‘fares tsunami’ which puts into sharp relief the £50k sweetener floated by ABP.

“The impact on people’s pockets will be dramatic, and at a time when thousands more visitors are being welcomed to Arran, in part because of the lower ferry fares, it would risk a major hit to the economy of the island if fares were to jump so significantly.”

And Peel Ports have hit back at reports in one local paper that £30 million of public money will be required to upgrade Ardrossan Harbour.

Mr Coleman said: “Local people deserve far better than anonymous and outlandish comments like those – we should be dealing in facts rather than ‘made-up’ nonsense. We’ve already said that a long-term commitment to keep the service at Ardrossan will unlock a multi-million pound private investment programme.”

And he welcomed the fact that the new £48.5million ferry will be significantly more reliable.

He added: “Its new bow thrusters will be over three times more powerful than the Caledonian Isles, transforming docking maneuverability, especially in poor weather.”