The deputy leader of Highland Council has criticised the SNP “centralisation” agenda as closure looms for police and fire control rooms in Inverness.
Black Isle Liberal Democrat councillor David Alston said the double blow for the city was also a lost opportunity for the region.
He said: “The closure of Inverness fire control is very disappointing. With the announcement that the police control centre will also be closed, we have lost our opportunity to combine the two centres under one roof.
“Once the facility is closed, it will be very difficult to bring it back. The Highlands are paying the price for the SNP’s desire to consolidate services in the central belt.”
But council leader Drew Hendry said Inverness being earmarked for a new national police command-and-control centre to respond to major incidents was a “good result”.
He said: “The news that we have won the national emergency response centre for the police has proved the fact that we made a positive case in the Highlands for retaining local knowledge and dealing with major events, which was a concern regarding the control rooms.
“While clearly we haven’t been able to effect a joint control room, I think the national centre we’ve got is a good result for us.”
The new centre could require a staff of 50 and give the north a jobs boost, which Aird and Loch Ness SNP councillor Mr Hendry said he hoped would provide opportunities for some people affected by the fire control room closure.
It would be shut under plans that will be presented to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Board on Thursday.
The service wants to cut the number of control centres in the country from eight to three to save money.
Despite a campaign to save the Inverness centre from the axe, the preferred option going before the board is to retain centres at Johnstone, Dundee and Edinburgh. The city’s police control room has also been earmarked for closure.
The Scottish Police Board will decide on the closures on Thursday.
Meanwhile, one of Scotland’s most respected mountain rescue leaders warned that planned cuts to police controls would be putting lives at risk.
John Grieve, leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue, made the claim after his team were given the wrong information about where to find a climber who had fallen 1,000ft at Cam Gleann on Saturday.
The call was first made to Glasgow’s police control, but with the injured man unable to pronounce where he was, the call handler could not make a rough guess as to who would be best able to deal with the call – meaning it was handed onto Inverness and then Fort William.
Mr Grieve said: “The rescue was complicated by the fact that the initial information was wrong.
“The injured man could not, or did not, pronounce the name of where he was. The police had no recording and could not pass the call through to me.
“His mobile could not be contacted at first, but after a while he did call back while we were in the helicopter and this time he gave a good location and we managed to figure out where he was.
“In this case it was not the police getting the pronunciation wrong, but by having local knowledge it is possible to know where the injured are referring to.
“In the past we have had other problems. We have talked to people in a police call centre who did not know the names of the mountains.
“A lot of these hills have Gaelic names and local knowledge is vital. Time saves lives.
“We managed to work out where this guy was – but quickly knowing where somebody is vitally important where lives are at stake.”