Highland Council’s Academy Street failure seen as a major defeat for the leadership as opposition leader says ‘I have never seen a capitulation like that’
Highland Council’s plan to revamp Academy Street is finished in what is a major defeat for the local authority’s political and operational leadership.
Almost exactly a year after the scheme was first put to the vote and agreed at a full council meeting the same body and largely the same councillors voted for its demise.
One senior councillor – the leader of the opposition Alasdair Christie – summed-up the situation: “I have never seen a capitulation like that.”
• The 'preferred' option for Academy Street revamp seeks to bar most traffic from the city centre
Few proposals to emerge from the council have encountered such controversy – from alienating the business community to the Court of Session ruling it “unlawful”.
The local authority’s active travel team tried to secure funding from Sustrans via the radical suggestion to slash traffic down to just 2000 movements a day.
To do that motorists from Millburn Road would be diverted via Queensgate and then back the same way or out Strother’s Lane. Those vehicles approaching from the Shore Street Roundabout could only exit via Strother’s Lane.
Some loved the idea of having much less cars going through the city centre including active travel activists – others feared what it would do to businesses.
There were early concerns about the planned changes that centred on consultation or engagement and also on the absence of an economic impact assessment.
But when the council unveiled its proposals it effectively had swapped one that businesses generally supported with one, as was to be seen, they would not.
Inverness BID led the fight against the change, helping to marshal opposition and challenging the council on the support that it claimed to have from the traders.
BID also campaigned for an economic impact assessment but this was done long after councillors voted to pursue the scheme so it did not inform the decision.
The strength of feeling was such that CruHoldings boss Scott Murray formed a new organisation called the Inverness City Alliance to tackle the issue.
But it was representatives of the Eastgate Centre who delivered the fatal blow to Academy Street revamp through a judicial review at the Court of Session.
Lord Sandison’s ruling was damning: The consultation process carried out by the council was not only “unfair” but had strayed into “unlawfulness.”
He said: “The consultation exercise failed to assist the respondent [the council] not only to choose whether or not to take any action, but to select which course of action it might most advantageously take.”
In private the councillors agreed to abandon an appeal – without cash from the Scottish Government via Sustran would be very unlikely be forthcoming.
The controversy continued when the council decided the whole item should be held behind closed doors but opposition leader Cllr Christie persuaded the chamber to make it public with exempt information discussed in private.
He said afterwards: "The conversion of the SNP and some independent councillors on Academy St is ludicrous considering they were fighting for the proposal to stop cars driving down academy street.
"I'm pleased that I was able to force the matter to be taken in public as they had no intention to do so"
