While I have Your Attention by Charles Bannerman: New hydro scheme in Inverness is easier on the eyes than the Gathering Place
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During my frequent runs and cycles along the West Link Road, it’s been intriguing to follow the progress of the new hydro-electric scheme that’s growing before our eyes at the far end of Canal Park.
I don’t know how cost effective its electricity will turn out to be, but goodness me, doesn’t it look really good?!
I’m not sure if it’s gleaming silver curves remind me more of a mini Glasgow Armadillo or a little Sydney Opera House, but as it progresses its aesthetic qualities are becoming increasingly evident.
Were it not that the Gathering Place, or whichever pejorative euphemism you may instead prefer, has given the term a distinctly bad name in this city, I would willingly call this project a work of art.
The hydro scheme certainly has far more artistic merit than the massively loathed Bridge To Nowhere with its green mould and an interior redolent of a muddy paddling pool.
The hydro idea dates back at least to 2018, well before the council finally gave the Gathering Place the go ahead.
So it’s a pity no-one thought of this as a far more deserving artwork, with actual practical value, before public money was blown on the most unpopular thing inflicted on Inverness since the Duke of Cumberland.
If they had been organised they could instead, and far more justifiably, have declared the Silver Armadillo “civic art”, funded it with that cash, saved a bundle on the project and relieved us of the other eyesore and its accompanying angst.
The Gathering Place certainly commanded heaps of publicity before completion but now, except when spray painted with unmentionables, everything seems to have gone eerily silent.
In particular, remembering how unswervingly keen the council were to impose this publicly funded folly on a deeply unwilling population, I’ve heard nothing at all about what I’d expect to be the grand official opening of what they clearly see as an important “asset”.
It’s been here for almost four months now, but not a dicky bird about unveiling the proverbial plaque there, unless they’re negotiating the ironically fitting and deserving gesture of getting Prince Andrew to do it!
On which subject, I’m no fan of cancel culture, but make an exception with Andrew. I fully support various calls to have him sacked as Earl of Inverness and even want to go a step further by ensuring that all his links with our city are thoroughly expunged.
Even before the US court verdict, his mother clearly believes he’s far enough beyond the pale to warrant sacking from everything else, so why should Inverness be different?
I can think of two plaque unveilings he performed that I attended, in the grandstand at the Queens Park running track in 1986 and the Inverness Royal Academy bicentenary plaque in 1992.
If these have not been removed yet, then I sincerely hope that they very soon will be, along with every other vestige.
I understand that removing an Earldom is quite difficult, but surely some means of unfrocking him can be found?
It’s an ongoing travesty to have this link.
We didn’t ask for him and, whatever it takes, we must be totally freed from this stigma.
Lord Provost or Less Potholes?
