By Olivia Andrews

Copyright inverness-courier

A councillor has branded Highland Council’s sign off of the controversial Inverness Academy Street project “cheeky”.

During the full council meeting yesterday, Councillor David Gregg (Inverness Millburn, Scottish Liberal Democrats) questioned the council’s decision to mark the project as completed.

Calling it “cheeky” he added that the council had been “sued” by trustees of the Eastgate Shopping Centre over the plan to restrict traffic movements on the street – and lost – before abandoning the plan.

The shopping centre and other businesses had raised concerns about the potential impact on trade of making it more difficult for people to access the city centre.

Cllr Gregg said the project had not been “completed” as stated in the council’s annual corporate performance report; rather it had simply stopped.

The report noted that the “project was not proceeding” but still counted the failed plan as part of a one per cent improvement on completed projects from 2023/24.

The council halted the project following a vote in September last year, after spending at least £54,000 in legal fees in an attempt to defend its proposals in the Court of Session where Lord Sandison ultimately labelled aspects “unlawful”.

A statement by the council about the decision to drop the plan at the time stated: “The decision made takes into consideration the challenges around funding and notes the huge amount of data collected during this project which could be useful for other projects in future.”

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