Developer in hot water with Highland Council over 'lazy' Gaelic translations for Inverness housing estate
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A HOUSING developer is being told to redo street name signs on a new estate in Inverness after Gaelic speakers slammed the translations as "lazy".
Signs for Drummossie Road and Benbecula Place in Stratton only included rough Gaelic translations for 'road' and 'place' and there was no attempt to translate the English versions of Drummossie and Benbecula.
Highland Council has now ordered the developer, Barratts, to redo the signs using the correct translations it had supplied after it said the housing business had failed to show it the sign templates before installing them and had appeared to use its own translations rather than those of the council.
A spokesman for Highland Council said: “In line with Highland Council policy correct translations were provided by The Highland Council to the developer for their street signs in this housing development in 2019 following consultation with Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba.
"The Highland Council also requested sight of templates prior to manufacture. This was not done and the developer subsequently sourced their own translations.
"These errors have been flagged up with the developer.
"The roads are not yet adopted by the Highland Council, however we are working with the developer to ensure the street signs are corrected before adoption takes place."
The council added that it has a qualified professional gaelic translation officer who provides "a dedicated translation and proofreading service" for council services, and who also consults with Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba (AÀA) – Gaelic Place-Names of Scotland – to ensure translations are as accurate as possible.
