The Inverness paw print trail will be staying in the city centre, councillors have agreed.
There was no ringing endorsement for the colourful footprints at the Inverness city committee today.
Instead it was a sense of resignation that the council cannot risk being hit with a £12,000 removal bill during a budget crunch.
Inverness city area manager David Haas told the committee he accepted responsibility for a blunder which saw the footprints added to Lombard Street, Drummond Street and Union Street without consulting councillors first.
“We didn’t get it right and I’m very sorry for that,” Mr Haas said.
“This is what I would call a blip. But it’s an important blip and we are going to fix it.”
A welcome addition or ‘shabby’ and ‘gaudy’?
The trail is designed to direct people from the High Street to the newly-revamped Victorian Market.
The paw prints are supposed to let people know that the market is dog-friendly.
A number of businesses in the market itself are supportive of the trail. But there has been criticism of its look.
Inverness councillor Alasdair Christie tabled a motion to have them removed last year, saying a number of people had told him they were “shabby” and “gaudy”.
Although it only cost £895 for the trail to be added, removing them could cost as much as £12,000 because of the risk of damage to the paving stones.
Will the paw print trail be reviewed again?
A report from council officials to today’s committee recommended leaving them in place to avoid that cost.
That recommendation was unanimously agreed.
But not without a few jabs at the process.
Culloden and Ardersier councillor Trish Robertson said: “We spent a lot of money on the Victorian Market and these footprints are out of keeping with what we would like to see in the city centre.
“It detracts from it. I’m really disappointed this investigation into what it would do did not take place beforehand.
“We should have checked whether it was good to put any material at all on those slabs because of the expense if it did not work out.
“I agree we’ll have to leave them but there are a lot of lessons to be learned.”
Inverness councillor Isabelle MacKenzie added: “This should have been dealt with at the very beginning.”
A review on the success of the trail will take place later in the year.
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