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Revised designs submitted for controversial Inverness hotel


By Val Sweeney

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Controversial plans to knock down a popular live music venue in Inverness and replace it with a £30 million seven-storey hotel could be decided next month.

If given the go-ahead, the proposed Bricks Hotel on the site of the Ironworks in Academy Street will be the largest private sector investment in the city centre in the next couple of years.

Initially, the company had hoped to open the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel by 2021 but last month it emerged the application was not expected to be determined by Highland Council until next year as further consideration was being given to detailed designs.

The company understands revised designs will now be put to the council’s South Planning Applications Committee on December 8.

But the council’s historic environment team, which described previous proposals as devoid of architectural quality, is maintaining its objections.

Inverness-born Allan Davidson, chief operating officer for Bricks Hotels, expects the hotel to attract 100,000 guests a year and be a key stimulus for retail and hospitality in the city centre.

“The opportunity to create 100 construction jobs and then 65 permanent full-time jobs will surely be regarded as an important asset to Inverness’s hoped-for rapid recovery from the pandemic which has been so damaging to the economy and is already costing local jobs,” said Mr Davidson.

“We’re already receiving calls from prospective new staff who have lost, or are due to lose, their jobs in Inverness.”

He said the company had recently made a series of changes to the design at significant expense.

The roof height had been lowered and the building would be the same height as the nearby Penta Hotel

Mr Davidson said Inverness needed new investment and development at this challenging time.

“It also requires more hotels and more bedrooms to be able to expand its post-pandemic tourism sector,” he said.

“Demand will go elsewhere if the volume of beds is not there.”

But the council’s historic environment team, which made a scathing assessment of the previous designs, remains unconvinced by the amendments.

Conservation officer Andrew Puls states they are very minor and fail to address the main concerns regarding scale, mass and bulk.

In a response to the application, he suggests removing at least one storey and setting back the upper two floors.

“If the proposed development is not adjusted so it better relates, responds and reflects the conservation area, the historic environment team will have no option other than to maintain their objection on the grounds that proposed development will not satisfy the statutory test to preserve or enhance the character and appearance of the conservation area, and will not accord with policy 57 of the Highland-wide Local Development Plan,” he states.

A Highland Council spokeswoman was unable to confirm the agenda for next month’s planning meeting and said the papers would be published on December 4.


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