City trees to get new light garlands

Tree lights along the banks of the River Ness are to be replaced with £62,000 funding from the Inverness Common Good Fund.

Members of The Highland Council’s Inverness City Committee today approved the funding support for replacing the lighting on 63 trees along the River Ness from Douglas Row to Infirmary Bridge on the east bank and from Infirmary Bridge to Ness Bridge on the west bank.

Original light harnesses with an expected life span of five years were installed in the year 2000 with Millennium festival funding.

Essential tree maintenance work carried out in March 2010 required the lights to be removed from the trees. An electrical inspection of the lighting garlands highlighted that they had come to the end of their safe and usable lifespan.

Modern energy efficient lights with a twenty-year expected life span that can be removed and replaced to accommodate routine tree maintenance will be installed on the trees ready for illumination by Christmas 2010.

Provost Jimmy Gray, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Inverness City Committee said: “The tree lighting enhances the riverside immensely providing a very beautiful setting in the darker months of the year. The effects are appreciated not only by locals but also the many visitors that come to Inverness each year.”