National Galleries and National Museums Scotland are “looking forward” to exploring ideas in the coming months for the transformation of Inverness Castle.
Both organisations have welcomed ambitious plans to transform the historic building into a major tourist attraction for the whole of the Highlands, after details emerged of their involvement.
Stuart Black, Highland Council’s director of development and infrastructure, revealed the plans earlier this week and said that the aim will be to create an attraction similar in calibre to the Victoria and Albert design museum, currently under construction in Dundee.
He said that the aim will be to fully open the castle as a tourist attraction in the early part of next decade.
The plans emerged as the first phase of the project, a 360 degree viewing platform on top of the castle’s North Tower, opened to the public on Monday.
Currently the main castle building solely serves as the city’s courthouse, but the court service wants to move into the new justice centre in the city’s Longman Road in 2019.
A total of £15million from the City Region Deal will be used to convert the castle and an application will also be sent for lottery funding as part of the project.
The council boss hopes to furnish the new tourism centre with artefacts from across the Highlands in a bid to encourage tourists to travel farther afield to sites such as the Cuillins in Skye, or the beaches of north west Sutherland.
Yesterday a spokeswoman for National Museums Scotland said: “We welcome the plans to transform Inverness Castle into a new cultural venue and have had some initial discussions with colleagues at Highland Council about how we might work together, though nothing has been decided yet.
“We have a successful and long-standing partnership with High Life Highland, with a number of our touring exhibitions travelling to Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, and we look forward to building on that relationship.”
A National Galleries of Scotland spokesman (NGS) said: “We are aware that there are ambitious plans for a new cultural venue at Inverness Castle and we have been following these with interest.
“NGS already enjoys an excellent relationship with Inverness Museum and Art Gallery and we have partnered with them on a number of very successful projects in the recent past. We have had some discussions with colleagues about a potential involvement in new initiatives in Inverness and, although nothing has been agreed or decided as yet, we look forward to exploring these ideas further in the coming months.”