David Knight: Inverness roads changes have become an embarrassing muddle for council

As a potential bestseller, I’m not sure my choice of book title would exactly jump off the shelf.

But I’m convinced it would be a gripping read for some people in Inverness and Aberdeen, who I think might appreciate it.

It goes like this.

“The Curious Case of Three Bikes and a Bus Lane”.

It begins in Academy Street, Inverness, but after much intrigue leads to a learned Scots judge who has to sort out a right old battle royal.

The underlying theme is about local democracy stumbling along a rocky road yet again.

The scheme aims to shift the focus in Academy Street from driving to walking, cycling and wheelingPerforming a disservice to the travelling public; this time in the Highland capital, but it’s not dissimilar to another messy situation in Aberdeen.

A scenario where the local business communities were pitched against their councils in both cases.

My memories of popular Academy Street during time in Inverness

The judge in question – Lord Sandison – stepped in to put the kibosh on Highland Council plans to ban through-traffic in Academy Street.

As the word kibosh was derived from a judicial whip to mete out punishment in the Ottoman Empire it seemed quite appropriate in the circumstances

The old road has always been popular with locals and visitors alike, attracting people to various traders in welcoming side streets and to explore the Victorian market which is a big attraction.

I remember it fondly from my various stints working in Inverness over the years.

But how to restore the street’s fortunes and integrate it into modern business and traffic patterns has always been a hot potato.

Unfortunately, it burned the fingers of councillors and officials after the judge concluded that they acted unfairly and even unlawfully over a botched consultation process for the Academy Street traffic plan.

At this junction we have to step back to take in the enormity of that “unlawful” bombshell legal decision.

What an extraordinary mess for a council – supposedly the very bastion of local democracy – to get itself into.

In their case the banana skin lying in the road was the fact that they carried out a business consultation on one option, but actually attempted to implement something different.

An apparent sleight of hand worthy of a Dodge City poker game, some might think…

The council may not have acted with bad intentions…

The resulting uproar from local businesses after this attempted “skulduggery” was a sight to behold.

I don’t think anyone – even the judge – thought the council was acting with anything other than good intentions.

But it became an embarrassing muddle.

An artists impression of the proposed new-look Academy Street was supplied to the P&J.

I looked at it closely and could see straight away where the council was heading.

Pride of place was now occupied by a cyclist who dominated the foreground in splendid isolation.

A freshly-painted red bus lane also jostled for attention.

Just in case we had missed the point, two more cyclists were standing nearby with their bikes at the ready.

Pedestrians were milling about, but there was only one thing missing – traffic.

That was the whole aim of the exercise, of course.

Looking at images made me think of Disney movie

Actually, I tell a lie: there was one solitary car halfway down the street – I couldn’t see any more, but my eyesight isn’t the best.

If it was a character from the old Disney film animation Cars, with Paul Newman doing voice-overs, this car should have had a comic look of horror drawn on its face like Mater the tow truck.

The car looked terribly out of place.

But the current heroes of this sorry saga appear to be the owners of the Eastgate shopping centre, which sits close by at one end of Academy Street.

They lodged an appeal over the council’s flawed “consultation”.

Making a stand for businesses, they said, which were horrified that a main traffic artery for trade was being choked off.

How Inverness Academy Street saga reminded me of Aberdeen’s road ructions

I could see a recurring pattern of words lit up in front me that offered comparisons with Aberdeen Council’s farcical bus-gate project, which also enraged city businesses recently and cut off trade.

Words like lack of business consultation, democratic process and a common sense approach.

Echoes of the same protests in Aberdeen, which actually inspired a Common Sense Compromise campaign by businesses in an attempt to persuade Aberdeen Council to change course.

In Aberdeen the council played it by the book – albeit a very vague book of obscure regulations which dodged proper consultation.

So not illegal unless there was such a charge as blind arrogance.

One can appreciate dilemmas facing Highland Council.

Trying to balance saving the planet and revitalising historical places, but without killing off businesses and jobs.

However, democratic requirements cannot be sidestepped in the process, which is why the judgment was so fundamentally important.

Councils grew used to pushing things through as a passive public lay dormant in the grip of Covid.

I hope these councils are not suffering from a new form of Long Covid.

David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal

Academy Street: Council loses legal case over controversial Inverness traffic plan