'Park your charges at The Square'

BUSINESS leaders in Grantown are mounting a campaign to get Highland Council to revisit traffic management and parking changes made recently in The Square.

Nearly 20 parking spaces were lost and locals say the work carried out by the local authority at the junction of Seafield Avenue and the Square has created a traffic bottleneck and is a danger to pedestrians and road users.

Stewart Dick, Grantown Initiative chairman, is frustrated the council is only now launching a consultation to give them powers to enforce the new parking restrictions.

He told the Strathy: "Now the work has been carried out they are going to consultation and I suspect once this is done they will have no reason to revisit it because they can then claim they have done their consultation.

"Grantown Initiative and Grantown Community Council have been asking for meetings on this issue for months and that has never transpired.

"Effectively the work has been carried out and they are going through the consultation process after the horse has bolted."

Mr Dick said nearly 20 parking spaces have gone which is damaging for businesses and tourist operators in the town centre as parking is now much harder to come by.

Residents, he said, feel that a chicane through the middle of the square is badly planned and dangerous causing congestion when trucks meet each other.

Several safe junctions he says have been turned into potential accident spots. There were recently calls for a new link road to relieve the bottleneck at the junction of The Square and Seafield Avenue.

Traffic is now increasing there following the opening of the new £4.5 million Lynemore care home and will rise further when all new Dulicht Court is fully occupied.

The corner is also heavily used by caravans, campervans and motor homes heading to the town's popular caravan park.

But Mr Dick claims that the link will solve all the problems deflects from the fact that issues at this junction have been seriously worsened by Highland Council's handling of parking provision in Grantown.

"It is a shambles. Double yellow lines have been placed on the shoulders of the grassed area in the square. We have lost all these spaces and the council have created this troublesome chicane.

"The council claim they did this to improve traffic flow. Nothing could be further from the truth."

The Grantown Initiative is calling on businesses and residents to get behind a petition which will be available to sign in The Wishing Well and Grantown Post Office and online very soon.

Mr Dick said: "We have to get the message across to the community that their voices are needed to force the council to act in their interests on these issues and create a parking scheme which is fit for purpose.

"The consultation which is taking place is to widen civil enforcement powers relative to decriminalised parking, however it includes a parking scheme which the community is not at all happy with and was put in place without consulting local people.

"Traffic at the Seafield Avenue junction is now having to pull out into the middle of the road because they can't see past cars parked in the spaces adjacent to this junction."

Badenoch and Strathspey Highland councillor Muriel Cockburn (SNP) is keen to gauge opinions: "I think it's important that we consider first and foremost road safety for all users – drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.

"It is important we reflect on how best we manage this and I look forward to meeting with the community council. The most important thing is the community's voice is heard and the most pragmatic way forward is capturing all safety aspects."

Highland Council did not comment.