City councillors spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of Inverness Common Good Fund money yesterday on a raft of projects – including promoting the Scottish Open and operating a part-time toilet.
A perennial controversy over the use of public resources to advertise the golf tournament angered and delighted councillors in equal measure.
There were also arguments about the use of other common good money for a traffic management study aimed at avoiding a repeat of travel chaos caused by staging major public events simultaneously.
Councillors are trustees of the city fund and its purpose was once again the subject of heated debate.
But members of the Inverness City Committee narrowly agreed – in an 8-7 vote – to grant £23,000 to promote the golf event at Castle Stuart and £3,000 for traffic modelling for one day this summer when the Belladrum music festival and Black Isle Show overlap.
Highland tourism officer Colin Simpson told councillors that the last Scottish Open attracted a peak TV audience of close to 500million. It was strongly argued that hosting the event would, once again, boost the city and Highlands’ reputation worldwide.
Liberal Democrat councillor Thomas Prag told colleagues that the £23,000 investment would benefit fringe events in and around the city and not those specifically participating in the golf tournament, which critics have described as a “commercial” venture that should be self financing.
“It’s to make sure Inverness puts on a good show and exploits the situation as much as possible,” Mr Prag said.
Former solicitor and independent councillor Roddy Balfour questioned whether such spending was correct use of the common good fund.
“The legal basis and the key concept of the fund is one of community benefit and it seems to have been thrown to the wind now,” he said.
“There’s not a lot of community benefit in what’s being proposed here.”
After considerable debate, the city committee city also agreed to use £22,900 of fund to retain the Castle Wynd public toilets but only for busiest six months of the year.
The facility had been approved for closure in 2011 as part of budget savings. It has since operated on a reduced hours basis between April and September and funded by the ICGF.
Within the city, there are only two other council maintained toilets, at Meal Market and Whin Park which are open year-round.
The biggest single dent on the fund was agreement to spend £225,000 on upgrading facilities on the popular Ness Islands.
Based on a structural survey, the committee agreed to invest in a range of improvements including new lighting on a footpath on the west bank of the river.