Highland Council accused of throwing good money after bad over Academy Street appeal businessman Scott Murray says ‘they are going to lose the public purse £4 million’
Highland Council has been accused of throwing good money after bad as the local authority appears determined to appeal against the decision that its Academy Street consultation was “unlawful”.
The Inverness Courier asked leading members of the business community and Inverness area councillors for their reaction to news of the appeal and whether the planned revamp should continue.
The council initially proposed one idea which was consulted on, before changing it at the last minute, altering the plan without, the business community says, engaging on aims to slash traffic by more than 70 per cent.
The owners of the Eastgate Shopping Centre challenged “the validity” of those decisions and won a judicial review with Lord Sandison ruling that the council’s consultation process was not only “unfair” but had strayed into “unlawfulness.”
Now the response was critical of the council’s decision to appeal with Cru Holdings boss Scott Murray saying it is a missed opportunity to reset the fractured relationship between business and the local authority.
“I am quite bemused as well as quite disappointed at the Highland Council’s decision given the lack of support for the decision,” he said.
“The fact that they are willing to spend more money pushing a scheme that people are not fully behind just smacks of another mismanagement by the local authority.
“They are spending money on the appeal to chase £8 million when they are only likely to return £4 million over the next 10 years so they are going to lose the public purse £4 million when we are going to have pensioners struggling to heat their homes.
“This is disappointing because we as a local business community had thought they would take this opportunity to re-engage and try and collaborate with the local stakeholders to find a solution that would work.
“However, they have set their stall out rather clearly in that they appear to have no interest in engaging with the local stakeholders and it is their way or the high way – so the feeling at the moment is pretty incredulous.”
That view was endorsed by both Conservative Councillor Isabelle Mackenzie and opposition leader Alasdair Christie who both want to the scheme to be halted and reset.
Cllr Mackenzie said: “Firstly, personally, in my view, I do not believe that the council decision to appeal is a good idea. It is wrong to spend public money to defend the indefensible.
“Secondly, it is not appropriate for the scheme to continue in the Option B that was ‘unlawfully’ pushed for by council officers and the councillors who supported it.
“The scheme would increase emissions across Inverness and offers very poor value for money.
“Fundamentally businesses would bear the brunt of this going forward, and my ward of Crown would see an increase of traffic in an already congested area.”
While Cllr Christie believes “the decision to appeal the Judicial Review leaves the Council open to further criticism for not accepting the independent review of Lord Sandison and leads towards the council not acting in the public interest.
“The continued insistence to proceed and embrace a flawed proposal despite clear unequivocal evidence of it representing poor value for money could be viewed as a failure to protect the public money.
“The scheme should not continue and instead I believe that a total reset needs to occur with inclusive discussions as to an agreed way forward by all and by that I mean council, businesses and public. All agree that improvements to Academy Street are necessary.”
