What next for Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal?
19th December 2018
Highland Councillors are looking forward beyond the current Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal and asking: "What next and where?".
Following 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.".
At the meeting of The Highland Council (on 13 December) Councillors approved the publication of the Inverness and Highland City-Region Deal Annual Report on the Council's website at https://www.highland.gov.uk/cityregiondeal
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.”
Related Businesses
Related Articles
As intimated in Highland Council's budget plan, a new senior management structure is to be implemented following approval by Council 14th March. It reconfigures the senior management team into two layers, rather than three and brings Highland Council into line with other benchmarked authorities.
Today, Morrison Construction introduced some of their local apprentices who are working on the UK Governments' Levelling Up Funded refurbishment project at the Northern Meeting Park in Inverness. All these apprentices have been recruited from the Highland area.
The by-election to elect a councillor to represent Ward 19 - Inverness South on The Highland Council has been won by Duncan Cameron McDonald - Independent who was one of the eight candidates who contested the vacancy. Voters in the ward went to the poll yesterday (Thursday 11 April) and the by-election count was held this morning in The Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness.
The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate. The Technology Placement Programme offers funding to businesses in the Highland Council area to cover up to 70% of the cost of employing a student or graduate.
Following the success of its Business Digital Grant scheme launched last year, The Highland Council is delighted to announce further funding. This is to help Highland companies access digital support alongside other business growth support.
The Highland Council is delighted to confirm a highly successful second year for Public Service Obligation (PSO) flights between Wick and Aberdeen. The period from April 2023 to March 2024 has seen a substantial increase in passenger numbers, with several months seeing over 1,000 passengers using the service, and overall the service has seen year on year growth of 25%.
Members of Highland Council, who met on Thursday 14 March 2024, approved a corporate Digital Ambition, which has been designed to deliver significant organisational change across Council services, recognising the current priorities within the organisation. The Strategy, which is embedded within the wider Council Delivery Plan, has been developed to focus attention and resources on areas of change which will deliver the greatest benefit to the Council.
The Council remains committed to supporting mentoring in our schools, including the support that is currently delivered through the MCR Pathways programme. Highland Council is currently undertaking a review of Employability Support provided by a number of different council services and how these relate to the work carried out by external partners and in our schools.
Highland Council members have considered and agreed a revised draft Highland Outcome Improvement Plan. The partnership plan has been reviewed and updated by the Community Planning Partnership.
Members at today's (14 March 2024) meeting of The Highland Council agreed the local authority's new draft Community Wealth Building Strategy. They were also asked to note that a period of public engagement on the draft will now begin, with a final strategy returning to full Council for consideration in September.
