We must 'work together' to give Inverness city centre a brighter future
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Charlie Barbour, a self-employed property developer who also owns the White House cocktail bar and bistro in Union Street, says the city centre – and in particular the Old Town – has been allowed to slide for far too long.
"If Inverness is the Highland capital then the city centre is the heart of the capital, and the Old Town is the core part of that," he said.
"It's what really defines the city in many ways for both residents and, particularly, visitors."
Branding Inverness city centre "an embarrassment" in terms of what it provides for visitors, he said everyone needs to work together on improving things.
"If you want to really sort things it's no use saying 'oh, it's a private sector issue'," he said. "If this is a problem it's a problem for the whole community."
Mr Barbour's plan puts forward a number of actions for improving the city centre, from clearing bins off the streets to creating a new "cultural quarter".
"I would like to see the council backing a pilot scheme for a bit of a clean- up," he said.
"I've looked at Baron Taylor's Street, for example, and for £110,000 you could really bring the whole thing up to a better standard, from giving buildings a fresh coat of paint and fixing gutters to creating communal bin stores and even putting up hanging baskets.
"I'd also like to see a series of wrought iron 'gateways' to mark the boundaries of the Old Town, creating a real sense of place.
"I reckon the whole of the Old Town could be done for £2.5 million, which is nothing compared to the value of the whole City Deal or when you look at the £30 million that is being spent on doing up Inverness Castle alone.
"Once that's done, you would have the individual businesses maintaining the standard through a service charge.
"It's not just about bringing improvements for the sake of it – if you bring things up to a standard you get more people seeing it as a viable place to set up business, you create more jobs and you give people more reason to visit.
"All the costs are based on quotes direct from contractors so they're realistic and I just think the benefit that could flow would make it a very worthwhile investment.
"A lot of people say if you want more visitors you just have to provide the right attractions – it's about getting the big name stores in that everybody wants to shop at.
"But actually there are very few retailers who create footfall and most of the time it's the other way round – retailers, bars and restaurants come to where the people already are. On that basis you need to look at ways of bringing more people into the centre first, then having everything else follow on from that."
Mr Barbour himself is already working on that on his own behalf, with new company Flexispace Solutions leading the conversion of office space in Baron Taylor's Street into variable sized "units" that can provide a starting point for young entrepreneurs or a handy base for more established companies looking for a toehold in the centre.
"It's almost like the next step up from working at home," he said. "We provide offices of different sizes, as well as desks, chairs and other basics, and tenants pay us rent.
"Those are the people who are going to use the local coffee shops and restaurants, and visit the shops, creating the footfall that will boost business across the board.
"There's a lot said about 'talking up' the city centre. We're not supposed to point out the problems or talk about the difficulties because that's 'being negative', which is bad.
"But if you don't acknowledge the problems how do you ever fix them?
"I think for too long the city centre has been the problem nobody wants to face up to, and that has to change.
"My business plan is about pretty simple, achievable goals that take a bit of investment to get off the ground, but have the potential to bring real rewards for businesses themselves as well as the people who will benefit from the new jobs created and the larger numbers of visitors a reinvigorated centre can bring."
