Boy gets own ferry service

The ferry service will cost £26,000 a year

A five-year-old boy has been given his own ferry service to get him to school, it has emerged.

Orkney Islands Council have arranged the "water taxi" to take Jordan Basford from the island of Egilsay, where he lives with his grandparents, to Rousay where his school is situated.

Jordan's grandmother Margaret Swindell said she was grateful to the authority for funding the service.

The ferry between the islands is understood to cost £26,000 a year to run.

Previously, Jordan had been forced to settle for a three-hour day, three days a week at Rousay Primary - where he was the only pupil - to fit in with the regular ferry services, while a teacher from Rousay came over to teach him two days a week.

Now a council-funded escort will join Jordan on the one-mile, 30-minute trip to Rousay where he will catch the bus to the school three miles away.

'Lively five-year-old'

Ms Swindell has been waiting for a year for the water taxi to be introduced and is "very grateful" to Orkney Islands Council.

She said it was the "ideal" situation - allowing Jordan to be able to attend school in Rousay everyday.

Ms Swindell said: "He is a very lively five-year-old. He needs to mix with children his own age, to have a support group and children to play with and learn social skills."

With the loss of its sole pupil, Egilsay's own primary school will probably now close but Ms Swindell said all other alternatives to the new ferry service had proved "unworkable".

Ms Swindell hopes the ferry will come in useful if any more of Egilsay's population need schooling.

It is understood members of the public will also be allowed to use the new service.