Businessman David Traill says Council's Academy Street plans threaten to repeat 'abject disaster'
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
An Inverness businessman who runs one of oldest established businesses in the city has warned Highland Council is repeating mistakes it has already made.
David Traill of Grahams warned the local authority is at risk of repeating the past by making the same errors over Academy Street as it did over Spaces for People in Castle Street.
"We suffered the Spaces for People nonsense," he said. "There was a grant for it, it ended up costing them more than the grant was and then, of course, it all had to come out because it was an abject disaster.
"So they don't have the trust of the business people in Inverness because we've already seen them fail at these things on multiple occasions.
"There's nothing that convinces me this is a well thought out or budgeted project and the impact on the businesses on Academy Street and Church Street I think will be devastating but from a Castle Street point of view, from a Crown point of view, there's no way that these things can't have a similarly detrimental impact.
"For me this is a small city with a rural economy and unfortunately, whether they like or not, that is still driven by the motor vehicle in many many ways, there's got to be ways to make traffic, move more smoothly and get people in and out of the town safely, quickly and economically for the city and without these catastrophic projects."
