LOOKING BACK: Remembering Inverness's rise to city status
Columnist Bill McAllister remembers how the Highland capital became a Millennium City.
This is a milestone weekend for Friday, December 18, marks exactly 20 years since Inverness was named as one of the UK’s three new Millennium Cities.
It was better late than never, for in 1897 the Royal Burgh of Inverness applied for city status as part of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, but had no luck.
It is said that some in power feared that success for Inverness would have drawn attention to the fact that Edinburgh and Glasgow actually had no formal status as cities.
This was belatedly put right when the Local Government Act of 1929 designated Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee as “counties of cities”.
In the 1972 Municipal Year Book, Inverness joined the other four plus Perth and Elgin as “burghs that are also cities” – though this was still far from official status.
In June 1999 the UK government launched a competition for new Millennium Cities and sparked a stampede of no fewer than 39 towns applying. Scottish towns were to the fore including Paisley, East Kilbride, Hamilton, Dunfermline, Stirling, Cumbernauld and Kirkcaldy as well as the Highland capital.
David Stewart, now Highlands Labour MSP, had pioneered the campaign for Inverness.
Key elected representatives and officials alike were far from unanimous in supporting his proposal to Inverness District Council. Some scorned the idea, reckoning Inverness had no chance. Others felt we were the Highland capital, and that was enough.
When Tony Blair, then campaigning to become Prime Minister, visited Inverness in 1996, Stewart lobbied for his support. The following year, as an MP, he pressed the case to Scottish Secretary Helen Liddel and in August 1999 her successor, Dr John Reid, paid a fact-finding mission to Inverness and was shown around by Provost Bill Smith, Highland Council convenor David Green and Grant Sword, chairman of Inverness and Nairn Enterprise.
Reid visited the Inverness Caledonian Thistle stadium where club chairman Doug McGilvray assured him of strong backing for the bid.
When the announcement came, Brighton and Hove was the first named, followed by Inverness and then Wolverhampton.
The Letters Patent, the official documents conferring city status, were sent to Inverness in March 2001, and are held in the museum at Castle Wynd.
Interestingly, there is no reference in the Letters to defined boundaries of Inverness, so the city limits are elastic. If you live in Balloch or at Ness Castle, you’re a city slicker.
In 2001, the greater Inverness area had a population of 44,246, compared to 64,350 in the latest tally, a significant growth whose acceleration has certainly been helped by city status.
Two years after Inverness won the Millennium city race, Stirling became Scotland’s sixth city. In 2012, Perth became the most recent as one of three in the UK to commemorate Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee.
But the city on the Ness got there before them. Bill Sylvester, chief executive of Inverness and Nairn Enterprise, said:”It will immediately make the area more attractive for business.”
He’s been proved right as business leaders made the most of the excellent new marketing opportunity.
There was an excitement in the air, back in those heady days.
Two decades later, a new generation takes it for granted that Inverness is “one of the big boys” and we continue to be one of Europe’s fastest-growing cities.