Highland Council has confirmed it is to appeal a judge’s ruling against its controversial traffic plans for Academy Street.
The owners of the Eastgate Centre raised an action in the Court of Session earlier this year.
They sought a judicial review of the council’s decisions taken on the issue on August 28 and September 14.
Earlier this month Lord Sandison ruled in their favour, saying there had been an unlawful consultation.
What did the council say?
Today a council spokeswoman said: “The Highland Council is lodging an appeal against the judgement in relation to the Judicial Review that was raised challenging the council’s intention to promote changes to traffic arrangements in Academy Street.”
The authority is due to discuss the issue at a meeting of the full council in September and decide a way ahead.
The council wants to reduce traffic in the city centre and make it more attractive for walkers, cyclists and wheelchair users.
Plans include stopping through traffic in Academy Street and adding bus lane sections between the junctions of Union Street and Queensgate.
Who made the challenge and why?
The legal challenge was made by Cains Trustees (Jersey) Limited and Cains Fiduciaries (Jersey) Limited, based in St Helier, as trustees for the Eastgate Unit Trust.
They claimed the council failed to carry out a fair and proper consultation, or to take account of the plan’s impact on city centre businesses.
Lawyers for the trust said the proposal contained in the consultation exercise did not contain details of the scheme later adopted by the council.
A meeting of the council’s Inverness city committee on August 28 2023 approved the plans by 12 votes to 10.
This was later backed by 35-33 votes at a full council meeting on September 14.
In April, an economic study showed the value-for-money of the scheme is “poor”.
But it found there would be a wider economic impact, generating between £1.5m-£4m from increased footfall.
Another report on potential traffic impacts showed the changes would cut the number of cars on Academy Street.
However, other areas would come under more pressure from displaced traffic.
Disappointment at council appeal move
Last week a number of city centre businesses complained they had not been properly consulted on the issue.
A meeting organised by Inverness BID was also told the council’s brief for the independent review was “fundamentally flawed.”
A spokesperson for the BID board said of the appeal: “We are disappointed that Highland Council have opted not to accept the recent Judicial Review ruling.
“We had hoped that the present juncture could have marked a turning point.
“Efforts may have been better directed at bringing stakeholders and businesses back around the table rather than potentially wasting more public funds on a proposal which has been independently assessed as offering ‘poor value for money’.”
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