Members of Culloden Community Council have written to the Highland Council to express their frustrations over delays in tackling overcrowding at the local secondary school.
Highland Council allocated around £7.5million for a new extension to Culloden Academy in 2018 to tackle the growing capacity crisis faced by the Inverness school.
The school currently has 1,149 pupils – 181 over capacity.
At a recent meeting of the local community council, parents said their patience was running out.
In a letter to Chief Executive Donna Manson, chairwoman Catherine Bunn said the continued delays is an “insult” to pupils.
She said: “Local parents are extremely disappointed at both a lack of information and action.
“We understand that £7.5m was allocated to this project by Highland Council in May 2018 – however, no building work has yet been scheduled with a confirmed start date.
“It is an insult and is seriously undermining the educational prospects of the children of the Culloden catchment area. The young people in this area deserve to be treated with more respect and their education actually given some serious prioritisation by the Highland Council.”
A council spokesperson said: “We can confirm we received the letter on Friday (15 January) and a response will be provided in due course”.
The letter was composed following an appeal to parents by local councillor Trish Robertson to help bring about the long overdue progression of the school.
She said: “It’s way beyond time that it was done and I’m having difficulty getting it so I have brought it up at all parent councils asking for some support on this.
“It is the most overcrowded school in the Highlands I believe so we need to see this come ahead. It’s gone on for far too long.
“We really need this school to be extended as soon as possible because we are already well over capacity and this is not going to get any better. We have a lot of houses being built there and for some reason we are not progressing this school.”
Mrs Bunn urged the council to give parents reassurance that the plans will take precedence for the council’s school development design team above alternate projects, outlined across the city, in light of the current climate.
She added: “The lack of action by Highland Council to progress the Culloden Academy extension thus far does not bode well for the future, if staff are now going to be working on three projects concurrently.
“Culloden parents would like reassurances that the extension will be focussed on first to get the project underway.”
Chair of Education Committee, councillor John Finlayson said: “The issues relating to Culloden were discussed at a recent meeting as part of the re-profiled capital plan. Assurances were given that engagement with the main stakeholders, including the parent council, would take place as soon as possible and updates about how plans would progress would also take place then.”