Inverness could get its own city council
Early moves are underway to examine the possibility of creating a separate council for Inverness.
Highland Council’s new leader Margaret Davidson said meaningful debate would explore the pros and cons of giving the city control of its own affairs.
She said the existing 26-member City of Inverness area committee was bigger than councils in many parts of Scotland and councillors would discuss how to better serve local democracy.
But the move, mooted for the first time at such a high level, was given a cautious welcome by veteran Inverness councillor and former provost Jimmy Gray.
He said: "I don’t doubt that we have a democratic deficit but there would be costs to Inverness and costs to the rest of the Highlands and whether we are ready to incur that right now I do not know."
The idea of Inverness breaking away from the rest of the Highlands politically has come up at various council meetings.
The machinations would need to be worked out but it would give the city the power to make its own decisions. Councillors elsewhere would have no say on controversial topics such the cost of car parking.
Councillor Davidson has signalled a strong commitment to such a move in her new manifesto.
The document, which sets out the council’s priorities for the next 20 months, carries a list of separate commitments set down specifically for the city.
She said: "There are terrific amounts of activity going on so we have separated out Inverness to ensure that we are clearly focussing on the opportunities there which are substantial."
Asked if this was a recognition that the city should have its own council, she said: "We have got to have that discussion, without a doubt. I’ve been talking to my colleagues the length of the Highlands and we have had an initial discussion in Inverness and that was very much around how we handle the business because as you know the City of Inverness area committee is an odd beast and can go on for some hours.
"I think we are looking at seeing what we can do to rationalise the business there as a starter.
"But the whole area committee - all 26 of us - is bigger than some councils in Scotland and that’s amazing. We need to have a discussion among ourselves about how we see the future of our democratic institutions around Inverness."
Councillor Gray agreed local democracy could do with some strengthening. But he feared such a drastic council restructure would probably lead to calls for other areas of the Highlands to have their own separate councils.
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"If this happened the north would come off the worst," he said. "If you were to give Sutherland its own council it would probably be a struggle for them to run viable services. It’s such a vast area and there and 4,000 miles of road.
"And the argument gets really complex. Are we going to give Inverness its own educational standards and budget settlement? Yes, in one sense it could make things more meaningful to people but the argument from all the rural areas would be 'we haven’t got the resources'."
