Highland Council remains silent on Inverness city centre’s Academy Street as its economic impact assessment slammed as ‘fundamentally flawed’
City centre business leaders will gather tomorrow morning to discuss the future of Academy Street - despite Highland Council remaining silent about its future after its plans suffered a major setback.
Earlier this month a judicial review brought by the Eastgate Shopping Centre led to Scotland’s highest court finding that the local authority’s consultation was “unlawful”.
That threw the council’s plans into disarray and it is yet to comment on what will happen next to its ambitions to slash vehicle movements to around 2000-a-day, create a bus lane, and widen pavements.
But the business community will meet to hear the results of a technical review of an economic impact assessment (EIA) made by AMION Consulting, stating it was skewed from the start because the local authority brief was “fundamentally flawed”.
The council’s plans - approved by a council vote - proved controversial with many in the city centre business community fearing changes would damage trade and traffic would be displaced and cause problems elsewhere. However, businesses have stressed they have always been open to engagement.
The report stated: “The brief prepared by the Highland Council was fundamentally flawed, as it requested for measures of value for money and local economic impact to be captured within the same analysis.”
It stressed an “economic appraisal” is usually a cost-benefit analysis to inform the assessment of value for money of public sector investment so a monetary value and the extent to which the benefits outweigh the costs give an indication of the value for money, while a “local economic impact analysis” assesses what the impact of a scheme on the level of economic activity is in an area, for example: the impact on local economy through metrics such as business output, retail spend, jobs and gross value added.
The report found that “the official benefit-cost ratio of 0.51” which equates to “£0.51 of benefit to society for every £1 spent” is “indicative of very poor value for money”.
The assessment continues: “Further weaknesses in the overall approach include only assessing one option, and not including sensitivity tests on key assumptions such as changes in scheme cost or traffic growth predictions.”
Scott Murray, the manager director of Cru Holdings who operates a host of city centre businesses and the man behind the Inverness City Alliance, which was set-up in part to represent business voices over Academy Street, said: “I am delighted by the result of the judicial review.
“Common sense has prevailed and I see it as a big win for local democracy but it is a shame it had to be taken so far to come to this.
“Businesses were always willing to engage and had the council engaged and had they consulted properly in the first place then it would not have come to this and we could well have had a workable plan for Academy Street.
“Instead we have arrived at a place where there is no workable plan and that benefits no one but businesses 100 per cent remain willing to engage with the process.”
He added: “It is not just about us as we are all agreed that Academy Street and the city centre does need work so there remains a willingness to establish what the changes should be.
“That should include consulting businesses, communities, cycling groups, disabled access groups and others - everyone has the right to be involved in what happens with our city.”
Fellow businessman Michael Freeman, owner of the Panasonic store in Academy Street, said: “I was never ever opposed to change in Academy Street.
“What a shameful outcome for our local authority. To work ‘outside’ of the law, despite multiple opportunities to listen to all the stakeholders in the city centre and correct their position was clearly something they never seemed to ever care to discuss.
“Their utter contempt has been beyond words but, the truth has prevailed. A dark day for those who danced along with this whole charade and for those who didn’t, this is nothing less than a triumph.”
