Highland Council awards LCC Live Event Services £29,000 towards staging of the European Pipe Band Championships in Bught Park, Inverness
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Organisers had originally sought £40,000 from the Inverness Common Good Fund.
Scheduled to take place in June, it will be the first time the European Pipe Band Championships has been staged since 2019 due to the pandemic.
The matter was considered by councillors sitting on Highland Council’s Inverness city committee where there was a mixed reception for the funding request from LCC Live Event Services.
Councillor Ken Gowans worried that the investment of common good cash may not benefit the city as much as is hoped, saying: “It is a one-day event. It is very likely that many of the participants will come on a bus and then leave on the bus and it is unlikely that there will be a lot of heads on pillows so to speak.
“But I just think we are setting a very dangerous precedent when we begin to grant almost £30,000 to an individual enterprise as the same could be said of any enterprise or event that comes to town.
“I just wonder if this is a good use of the common good fund. I appreciate that like any event it will bring something to the town but surely that is part of the risk and if we didn’t give this money would it still go ahead? If it doesn’t, then it’s not commercially viable.”
Councillor Bet McAllister said: “I am fully supportive of this. I don’t know whether you have been to the event Mr Gowans but it is amazing. People come from all over the world to this particular event that we are putting on in Inverness.
“These people may be coming in a bus but they will be staying here, overnight or perhaps over a weekend. They won’t be just travelling from wherever and going home on the same day.
“So it is good for the city, it is good for the shops, and I think it is just a great day out and I have been to every single one of them, it is just amazing so I am fully supportive of it even though it’s a fair amount of money.”
Provost Helen Carmichael said: “There is prestige for the city. If you look on YouTube, you can see all the people from all over the world. You notice that all these pipe bands were in Inverness.”
