Council highlights need for water investment in Highland

The meeting at Inverness was called as the result of the Council identifying 53 settlements in Highland, which were constrained by lack of capacity in water services infrastructure and a further 63 where capacity was being approached.

For example, affordable housing earmarked for areas of acute shortage such as Kiltarlity and Drumradrochit could not proceed due to the new water works at Glenconvinth not being sized for growth.

The Council has recently made representations through COSLA to ensure the equitable distribution throughout Scotland of investment to directly tackle development constraints allowing the development of 120,000 new homes and 4,050 hectares of new commercial land. Four specific immediate priorities have been identified –the Spey Valley Dornie, Halkirk and Ness-side in Inverness.

Spey valley – the settlements of Kingussie, Newtonmore and Dalwhinne are presently constrained with waste water treatment plants being at capacity. This area forms part of the Cairngorms National Park, and is subject to a significant degree of development interest for housing, affordable housing and tourism and leisure developments.

Dornie – the development of housing in this area is currently being constrained by lack of treatment capacity. The removal of constraints would be a major boost not only to the immediate vicinity of Dornie, but to the Lochalsh area as a whole.

Halkirk – the removal of the existing development constraints in Halkirk is fundamental to the economic development of the area arising from the decommissioning of Dounreay.

Inverness (Ness-side) - The further development of Inverness as the Highland capital would benefit from the removal of a number of constraints currently holding up the development of more than 1000 houses within the city expansion area at Ness-side/Ness Castle.

Also highlighted was the decision of the Council’s Skye and Lochalsh Area Committee to defer all current planning applications in Minginish (Carbost, Portnalong, Fiskavaig), pending further detailed discussions with Scottish Water on water supply. The Area Committee has also requested a separate meeting with Scottish Water to discuss these issues in more detail.

Other Area Planning and Building Standard Managers have raised concerns that the information contained within planning application consultation responses does not provide the level of information required to help the applicant.

Convener Councillor Alison Magee, who led the Highland delegation, said: "We appreciate that there has been significant investment in the Highlands by Scottish Water but highlighted at our meeting the growing frustration felt in parts of our large and remote area that building projects cannot go ahead because of the absence of adequate water supplies and wastewater treatment.

"We discussed our concerns about flooding in areas of the Highlands, including persistent flooding at Invergordon, and the need for the Scottish Water call centre to provide accurate information to the public when there has been a failure in a water supply. Overall it was a useful and productive meeting and hopefully we can make progress in the coming months at strategic and operational levels."