INNOVATION was a key item on the agenda at Ferguson's under Jim McColl's ownership.

The shipyard secured £8m of funding from the European Union in 2018 to build the world's first hydrogen-powered seagoing car and passenger ferry and won an award in 2019 for its work on the project.

Ferguson Marine went on a year later to be honoured with an 'innovation of the year' accolade at the Greentech Festival's Green Awards in Berlin.

Then yard boss Gerry Marshall and chief naval architect Chris Dunn were presented with the prize in recognition of the company's work on the groundbreaking HySeas III project.

In his interview today with the Telegraph, Mr McColl said: "These people [the former Ferguson management team] were at the leading edge of developing a hydrogen-powered ferry and won this award against global competition.

"That's all gone.

"Everything else that they'd done, which was building the future workload and broadening out the existing workload from just ferries, that's all gone too."

At the time of his company receiving the award in 2019, Mr McColl described it 'an outstanding achievement considering that just over four years ago the company was brought out of administration'.