Outlander star 'gutted' to miss oyster festival but show goes on

Outlander star Sam Heughan has said he is "gutted" to have had to pull out of this year's Stranraer Oyster Festival.

Despite the loss of a headline name, organisers of the Stranraer Oyster Festival said they remained optimistic of breaking their attendance records this weekend.

Romano Petrucci, who chairs Stranraer Development Trust, said they were confident of topping the previous best of 34,000 visitors.

The festival begins on Friday evening and celebrates Scotland's only wild and native oyster bed.

It had been planned that Heughan would appear at Stranraer this year, but in a post on Instagram he said he was "gutted" to miss it.

"To everyone that signed up for the Spirit of Galloway event I am terribly sorry that we couldn't make it with my schedule," he wrote.

"We tried so many different ways to make it work but unfortunately I won't be able to make it back for the festival."

However, he said there were plenty of reasons to attend and added that he hoped to make it next year.

"Don't worry there are plenty festivities to enjoy all weekend from live music, tastings, chefs, food writers and of course fabulous local oysters," he said.

"Enjoy everything that Scotland has got to offer - some of the best seafood in the world."

In his absence, Petrucci said there was still plenty to bring people to Stranraer including celebrity cookery demonstrations from Matt Tebbutt, Rosemary Shregar and Julie Lin.

The festival also received a welcome boost with news of the first signs that there is a bumper new generation of wild native oysters in Loch Ryan, following an "unusually large spawning event".

"When we started this festival, most people had no idea what was under the water in Loch Ryan," said Petrucci.

"Now the loch's oysters are recognised right across Europe as an ecological treasure.

"To hear in the very week we open the festival gates that the bed is thriving and the next generation is already settling, well, that's the best news we could have hoped for."

For more than a century, Stranraer was best known as a ferry town with regular crossings to Northern Ireland.

However, that changed in 2011 when Stena Line moved its operations up the coast to Cairnryan in a bid to cut both costs and journey times.

A wide range of measures have been undertaken or are planned in the town to help with regeneration.

One of the most successful has been its oyster festival - launched in 2017 to celebrate the local oyster beds.