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Five projects short listed for £600,000 fund





Inverness.Town House and High Street.
Inverness.Town House and High Street.

Inverness councillors have decided to put up five projects in a bid to get a cash injection from the Scottish Government’s Town Centre Fund.

That comes after some local councillors won their battle to get a number of projects put back on the list of contenders after insisting the officers had mistakenly deemed some ineligible.

The fund is worth close to £3 million with the Inverness area due to get around £600,000 but councillors baulked after officers moved to get certain projects officially removed from consideration.

Members felt that some of the project ideas put forward by officers contained flaws in their applications like deeming that portable street lighting “could be considered infrastructure.”

WASPS Inverness Creative Academy is to get £160,000 to put towards meeting spaces for tenants and the community, 54 affordable creative industry workspaces and 26 flexible co-working spaces for freelancers at the revamped Midmills building.

The Victorian Market got £250,000 despite already being awarded £1.5 million by the committee to create a quality food and beverage offering including 18 units and flexible entertainment space.

The Pavilion at Cromal Hill in Ardersier finally got £40,000 for a refurbishment which will include new windows, doors, showers, flooring, kitchen units and external refresh.

Inverness College UHI wanted £150,000 towards the installation of a full-size 3G synthetic Sports Pitch at Inverness Campus but got £126,000.

It will host rugby and football with floodlights and constructed to World Rugby, FIFA and Sports and Play Construction Association (SAPCA) standards.

And finally, the Inverness Angling Club wanted £20,000 for the rebuilding of the outdated and unserviced hut at Bught Road and were awarded that.

All the projects will now go forward to the Highland Council’s town centre working group for consideration to potentially receive funding.

The Town Centre Fund seeks to encourage town and city centres to diversify and flourish, giving new purpose and creating footfall.

The council has been given a £2,965,000 capital grant from the Scottish Government and is obliged to legally commit all funding before end March 2020 and to be spent by end October 2020.


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