Hello,

You were kind enough to sign the petition asking Highland Council to unblock the roads and remove the “spaces for people” barriers. We saw agreement to reopen Castle Street area, and the Eastgate barriers were scaled back. On Academy Street, councillors decided to ask planners to propose a better scheme and they took that as permission to leave the barriers in post and dream up more ways to limit traffic.

The council has, since then, narrowly agreed to proceed with developing a project that would see private cars prevented from traversing the city centre via Academy Street. I have argued that council officers lied in support of their project and have a complaint outstanding with the Public Sector Ombudsman. Inverness BID are stating that the council has not consulted properly. The Eastgate Centre has raised a case for Judicial Review and still Highland Council wants to proceed.

I have created a new petition specifically calling on the council to stop spending time and money developing the damaging proposals. Businesses say it would damage trade, residents of Crown and other areas say it would spread traffic to their local streets, and carers say accessing clients would take longer as they use Academy Street to get across town.

Please follow this link https://www.change.org/AcademyStreetPetition

and sign the new petition.

Thanks

Donald