Dingwall aspirations in spotlight as senior councillor seeks movement on long-term strategy for Ross-shire's county town
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A PLAN addressing the issues and aspirations of Ross-shire's county town for decades to come has been identified as a top priority of a senior councillor leading a local area committee.
Graham Mackenzie, a former rector at Dingwall Academy before being elected a councillor, said: "Dingwall is a beautiful place to live, a good town to live in but we need to get our priorities right to make sure that continues."
Top of an ambitious to-do list is sitting down with council bosses and hammering out a strategy addressing local aspirations as has already happened in Inverness, Fort William and Caithness.
He saidL “We need a conference or a seminar which looks at Dingwall and the way forward. One that includes the business park, the Kinnairdie link road, housing, drainage and flood alleviation to see where we are going."
The potential impact of a bid for a Cromarty Firth freeport fuels the desire to act quickly over the county town.
Cllr Mackenzie wants to build on the support and focus that emerged since the Dingwall and Seaforth ward became an area committee with more powers to deal with certain issues. He said: “What will happen now – and I think the four ward councillors are fairly unanimous on this – is to push for the infrastructure of Dingwall in the next five, 10, and 50 years. We have already slipped off the capital plan for the Kinnairdie link road which means we can’t go forward with the planned housing developments until the link road is in place.”
Yet there are some green shoots beginning to show from the work put in by local members who include councillors Angela Maclean, Margaret Paterson and Sean Kennedy.
Chief among them is a £500,000 maintenance programme about to start on Dingwall Town Hall, famed for hosting a concert by the Beatles but now needing considerable work.
The proposed works are expected to start in the next two weeks concentrating primarily on the roof and repointing of stonework, replacement of rotten timber, overhaul of existing rainwater goods and external paint work.
The Town Hall – which also hosts a Newton Room to boost science, technology, engineering and maths learning – is expected to remain open for the duration.
Cllr Mackenzie said: “It is also important for Dingwall for the asset rationalisation group to decide what they are going to do – we have buildings in the centre of Dingwall like the High Life Highland building which used to be the old library, we have got the community centre, we have got St Clement’s school, which hopefully will be empty in a few years.
“So what are they going to do with that square? How are they going to rationalise the assets that we have in Dingwall and we need to know that and we don’t at the moment.”
He added: “There are quite a lot of things to do but right now we are just treading water. Dingwall is a beautiful place to live but we need to get our priorities right to make sure that continues.”
