New bypass may dip into city common good fund

THE Inverness Common Good Fund could be raided to help pay for the city’s controversial multi-million pound bypass.

The cash pot, set up to help the city’s residents, might be called on to assist with the relocation of sports facilities which will be destroyed by the £27.2 million link from the A82 to Dores Road.

Costs of the new sites for Highland Rugby Club, Torvean Golf Course, Inverness Blitz Academy of American Football and other sports teams have not been calculated.

But a development brief, including some financial assessments and giving details of when and where changes will be made, is due to be released in March next year.

Early predictions were that an additional £5 million would be needed to move some sports facilities onto privately-owned land north of the A82, but campaigners for the route to be scrapped fear they could see the project’s costs spiral out of control, reminiscent of the Edinburgh trams fiasco where the costs are treble the original estimates.

Highland Council is admitting that it has no idea as yet of the final cost of the whole project.

In March, councillors ignored a ground-swell of public support for a £67.8 million high-level bridge over the River Ness and Caledonian Canal, which would have been a fixed cost and protected green space, instead choosing a low bridge across the river and another swing bridge at the canal.

Inverness councillors, some of whom voted for the bypass route, are the trustees who decide how the common good fund is distributed.

"When things get tight the common good is mentioned as a pot of gold, but there will be one hell of a kerfuffle if that is suggested formally," said John West, spokesman for the West Link Protest Group.

"The councillors who pushed through this route in the face of public opposition would be the jury on any application to help fund the project, which is crazy.

"We are all aware of public projects which have ended up disastrous from a financial point of view, like the Edinburgh trams, and this project has all the hallmarks of another debacle."

The council’s head of planning, Malcolm MacLeod, revealed applications to pay for new facilities are likely to be made to the common good fund, with other money sought from lottery grants.

It is understood developers’ contri-butions, which will help pay for the new road, could also go towards it, as well as applications to sportscotland.

"No firm costings have been developed yet," Mr MacLeod said. "How it is paid for is a discussion for the council members to consider and that will look at the different options available.

"It may mean working with national organisations to get funds. It could include the lottery and common good.

"This is a huge project and it is important to get the development brief right so we have a framework to move everything forward from."

The controversial route, designed to ease city centre congestion, is unlikely to be built before 2014.

It was chosen from a list of eight options ranging in price from £23.5 million to £75.5 million. Inverness Central councillor Donnie Kerr thought it would be appropriate to use the common good fund to cover part of the costs, despite being critical it had been overused in the past.

But he questioned if new sports facilities were needed for that area, considering similar are planned for the university campus at Beechwood and a project in Culloden.

The independent member was part of the SNP opposition to the previous Independent/Lib-Dem/Labour coalition which approved the route.

"We should look at it all again because we haven’t got it right," he added. "It’s been a shambles from day one.

"I thought some of the options were there to make the others look better and I was very unenthused by the whole thing."

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