Councillors slam 'bizarre' Town Centre Funding projects in the running for more than £252,000 of Scottish Government cash
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Inverness councillors are readying up for another fight over how more than £252,000 in town centre funding is to spent on the city and surrounding areas.
The second round of cash from the Scottish Government aims to support construction and employment but the whole process has been marred by a stand-off with officials who favour different investment ideas.
In a bid to avoid the recriminations seen during the first tranche of funding, a special meeting of the Inverness area committee is scheduled to determine the matter.
Inverness has received a share of the £1.06 million Highland-wide pot of money and competition for the funds is likely to be fierce – in total £435,000 is being sought but councillors have £252,000 at their disposal.
Having invited bids for the cash, Inverness area councillors are to consider the merits of eight projects in total – six within the city centre, one in Drumnadrochit and one in Beauly.
The projects are:
- Baron Taylor’s Street – Glen Mhor Ltd wants £20,800 towards the conversion of premises at 2 Baron Taylor’s Street into 30 flexible offices.
- MacGregor’s Bar, Academy Street – the owners of the bar want £30,400 to put towards a new “gourmet fish bar” at the premises.
- Browns Gallery, Castle Street – £41,000 is sought to convert vacant premises into an art gallery and events space.
- Castle Tavern, Castle Street – the pub owners have requested £13,000 to improve external space, though council officers say the maximum they could get is £3000 to complete outstanding works, including additional landscaping.
- High Street, Inverness – Highland Council is bidding for £35,010 to “declutter” the High Street, including the removal of “extraneous” street furniture and restoration of paved surfaces.
- 7-17 Union Street, Inverness – another Highland Council team want £150,000 for shopfront improvements as part of the £10 million redevelopment of the former Arnotts building into new flats and retail space. The aim would be to preserve and enhance the historic character of the property.
- Drumnadrochit – Glen Urquhart Community Council wants £75,000 to demolish a vacant former shop as part of a wider partnership project to create new community space and enable repurposing of adjacent land for affordable housing.
- Beauly – Beauly Community Council wants £70,150 to refurbish public toilets.
A report to councillors states: “While a town centre focus remains with the fund, the key driver behind the extra funding is to stimulate local construction activity and support employment across Highland at this time of economic crisis.
“Accordingly, the Scottish Government has conditioned that grant expenditure must be complete by March 2021.”
Officers raise a number of concerns about the bids from private businesses in terms of demonstrable public benefit or whether there are any signs of “market failure” which would justify public assistance.
But opposition councillors have raised concerns about the tender process and the number of private firms bidding for a share of the money.
Councillor Andrew Jarvie said the whole process has struggled because the council has failed to engage with businesses and traders have been left at a disadvantage because the application forms do not reveal much.
“This fund exists to 'stimulate and support place-based economic investments’ to create footfall. I struggle to see how nearly any of these proposals meet that,” he said.
“The stunning lack of eligible projects just highlights the infuriating failure of this council to actually engage with others and come up with ideas.
"There are some applications I just don’t understand and the form the council issued to applicants doesn’t really give me much information.
“One application is £70,000 for toilets the council was trying to get rid of, another is a request for £75,000 from a community council to demolish a building they don’t own, for the council to build houses on.
“These may be great projects, but I really fail to see how they meet the purpose of this specific fund."
Councillor Ken Gowans was equally unhappy with some of the proposals that were brought forward for consideration by the Inverness committee saying: “A lot of them simply don’t make much sense.
“I have asked Thomas Praag from Inshes Park if they would be interested in bringing an application because it is a public park and it would obviously be for the greater good.
“It worries me when we have quite a number of private businesses looking to benefit from this fund and I think we need to ensure that these funds are used to benefit the public first and foremost.
“You know, £35,000 in tidying up the High Street is all well and good but I feel we could spend an awful lot more of the money in trying to make the city centre much better.
“But there are other areas up at Inshes and Milton of Leys where there is a general lack of facilities there – if we had time we could perhaps have developed a plan to have public toilets at Inshes park.
“But in terms of demolishing derelict buildings it does seem a bit bizarre to have that in there especially as we don’t know who owns the site or who will benefit financially from it.”
The bids will be considered by Inverness city area committee on Monday.
