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Ambitious 20-year plan to regenerate Highlands





Inverness.
Inverness.

Highland Council has just set out a range of complex and ambitious proposals equating to billions of pounds over two decades for investment in roads, schools, housing, services and generating money from renewables.

Three major but overlapping areas have been integrated under major policy papers: the Highland Investment Plan; the Highland Housing Challenge and the Social Values Charter from Renewables.

Taken together they aim to regenerate education and commerce while providing sufficient housing and local services as well as town centres by bringing together the public and private sectors.

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First, the plans for the Highland Investment Plan have already been announced, with the council aiming to invest more than £2 billion in the region’s roads, schools and other infrastructure over the next 20 years.

The update confirms that Phase One “which requires formal decision by council” will include Beauly Primary, Charleston Academy, Dunvegan Primary, Fortrose Academy, and Inverness High School.

Phase One locations will see the initial master-planning process for Dingwall and Thurso to be completed by December so the council can complete community and stakeholder consultation for new Points of Delivery (PODs).

The first two masterplans are for Dingwall and Thurso. PODs will bring together statutory organisations – council, NHS, Police Scotland, ambulance service – where appropriate in shared facilities.

But the options for development are broad and are viewed as much as for local service points for places like libraries, community cafes, offices, family centres, or health care among others.

The Highland Housing Challenge looks to face up to the multibillion-pound problem of providing sufficient housing for the thousands of people on the waiting list for social housing as well as those who want to rent or buy.

The council has declared a “housing challenge” as it projects it will need more than 24,000 homes costing between £2.8 billion over the next decade or £1.7 billion over the next 14 years so that demand meets supply.

The main factors behind the move are the inauguration of the Highland Green Freeport which is expected to attract around 8400 direct jobs and there are 8600 households on the Highland Housing Register.

So the council now says it has revised its housing supply targets and they now stand at 24,235 over the next 10 years – 7078 of those are affordable homes required while 17,157 are market homes.

The costs are more than can be sustained by the local authority alone as costs have risen 44 per cent since Covid and are now about £227,000 per home and then there is the annual historic debt repayments of £26 million a year.

That too is expected to go up to £35 million and slices an almost 42 per cent chunk out of the council’s housing budget as the total debt is £365.2 million – much of that is historic debt from district councils.

Therefore the council leader Raymond Bremner has written to Tory and Labour figureheads to ask for a partial write-off of the housing debt to free up funds.

How that is financed is the big question. Currently the opportunities presented by the freeport is one of the main routes as the council will get funds through non-domestic rates.

Other options being entertained include other sources of long-term capital or private equity to enable housing investment, maximising additional private sector developments and paying for it through the main council fund

However, a new means is also tabled by getting more cash from renewables developers through a new Social Values Charter, which is targeting half-a-billion pounds worth of revenue.

Central to this proposal is to “make the most of the financial and environmental opportunities arising from the huge renewable energy potential in the Highlands”.

Currently, local communities receive approximately £9.1 million annually in community benefits – it should according to Crown Estate guidance be closer to £13.9 million.

The potential income from the community benefit funding available from operational, planned and repowered onshore wind farm sites could be £17.5 million per year in 2030 (total of £158.9 million) or £20.7 million a year by 2050 (£549.4 million).

The council states that “a core aim of the Charter is to ensure that all communities across Highland are able to benefit from renewables investment.

Sharing community benefits is a core component of Community Wealth Building.

“It is proposed that in addition to direct community benefit funding of £5000 per MW, investors will contribute a further £7500 per MW for each renewable energy development to a central fund which will support and enable economic development, increase prosperity and achieve equity for communities across Highland.”

That will serve the creation of a Strategic Fund Partnership setting out the investment priorities of housing; connecting people and places; employment and employability; and addressing inequalities.

If that additional funding was received then clearly it would more than double the totals listed just above.

The full meeting of Highland Council will debate these ideas on June 27.


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