Roads fund shake-up imminent

A CITY councillor is pressing for urgent action after the summer recess to tackle a disparity in local authority roads funding between Inverness and the rest of the region.

Council leader Margaret Davidson promised the city committee in recent weeks that her independent-led administration would address the issue.

Inverness South member Ken Gowans said: "I understand that we have a region-wide responsibility to ensure roads of a good standard but a little more equality is required because at the moment Inverness doesn't get enough.

"That doesn't mean to say Inverness wants to disadvantage the rest of the Highlands. We just need it to be a wee bit fairer.

"We have 16.9 per-cent of Highland roads in Inverness but receive only 14.9 per-cent of that budget, so we're short-changed."

Highlighting the complexity of differing costs, he pointed out that city road repairs can prove considerably more expensive, for example, because of enforced night-time works.

Councillor Davidson offered an assurance that a paper would go to the infrastructure committee next month.

The administration last week confirmed £1.5 million extra for roads after pinpointing an under-spend within the budget.