'What Next And Where?' Following Highland City-Region Deal

Highland Councillors have raised the question of 'What next and where?' following the current Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal.

Commenting on the publication of the Deal's annual report, Leader of The Highland Council Cllr Margaret Davidson said: "A meeting will be convened in the New Year with Councillors who have a particular interest in the City-Region Deal to talk about where we can go next and what we can do."

The report details the region-wide geographic spread and additionality created by projects in the Inverness and Highland City-Region showing the spread of projects across the region.

Stuart Black, Director of Development and Infrastructure explained: "The expenditure in the report is shown up to March 2018 and I am pleased to say that spending has increased over the period since then and we have now spent in the order of £5m across the City-Region deal."


He added: "In addition to the digital project in the City-Region Deal we have also gained £4.2m of local full fibre network funding for Inverness, Fort William, Wick and Thurso for ultra-fast network in those communities which is in addition to the City-Region Deal. This is a very good example of a project that has been built out of this partnership for the City-Region Deal."

Highland Council Leader, Cllr Margaret Davidson thanked the Programme Manager for the City-Region Deal, John Robertson for his work on the programme and said: "We are doing a very good job here in Highland on the City-Region Deal; we are achieving and making excellent progress indeed. We are building on the Wi-Fi project that we have been putting in to 14 towns and villages right across the Highlands. We are the only Council in Scotland that was awarded funding for ultra-fast broadband and we'll have it in Inverness, Fort William, Wick and Thurso. This is going to provide astonishing benefits to our University, colleges and our businesses. It really is a potential economic booster. In addition the City-region deal is funding affordable housing right across the Highlands including sites in Inverness, Drumnadrochit and Ullapool."