CALEDONIAN MacBrayne has issued a revised summer ferry timetable for the Ardrossan to Arran ferry service.

The original timetable had to be altered following the announcement that the 31-year-old MV Caledonian Isles will remain out of service for the summer season due to extensive steelwork requirements.

MV Isle of Arran and MV Alfred will operate a two-vessel service on this route when the summer season begins on March 29, with the Isle of Arran sailing between Brodick and Ardrossan and MV Alfred operating to and from Troon.

And CalMac says it may provide extra sailings between Troon and Brodick, using MV Alfred, between March 12 and 28 - if it can source enough additional staff.

The ferry operator also says the prospect of using a different, larger, ship, instead of the Isle of Arran, between Ardrossan and Brodick during the summer remains a possibility - but this depends on the outcome of berthing trials elsewhere in the CalMac network this week.

A CalMac spokesperson said: "While current data on passenger and traffic volumes on the service indicates that for periods of the summer timetable there will still be sufficient capacity to meet demand, there may be constraint at peak periods and some customers may not be able to attain their preferred sailing time.

"This is why we are currently investigating ways in which to increase capacity to Arran, which would involve swapping MV Isle of Arran for the larger MV Hebrides."

This proposal is dependent on MV Isle of Lewis successfully completing berthing trials at Uig, Tarbert and Lochmaddy.

If successful, those trials - due to take place this week, subject to weather conditions - would enable MV Hebrides, which usually operates on the Uig-Tarbert/Lochmaddy service, to be transferred to the Arran route instead.

To help with current capacity requirements to and from Arran, MV Catriona will continue to operate additional sailings between Claonaig and Lochranza until March 28.

The start of the summer timetable on March 29 means the resumption of the regular summer service on the Claonaig-Lochranza route.

Finlay MacRae, head of operations for CalMac, said: “The loss of MV Caledonian Isles for the summer season is creating unavoidable constraint on services and has meant that we have had to review vessel deployment across our entire network.

"I am grateful to the Arran Ferry Committee for their patience while we revised the Arran timetable, which I believe offers the best solution while the limited resources available to us.

“We remain focused on providing a reliable and resilient ferry service to the Arran community, and operating from Troon, whilst disruptive for customers, allows us to maintain critical links from Arran to the mainland while Ardrossan is not available to MV Alfred.”