Around £63.4m will be spent on roads and infrastructure improvements over the next 3 years. Following this, increases in capital through the Highland Investment Plan should see a further £287m investment to sustain roads and transport infrastructure over 20 years, pending agreement by council as part of budget setting from 2027 onwards.

Additional to this will be funding to strengthen existing capital commitments to a range of ongoing infrastructure needs over the next twenty years, including Roads, Bridges, Street Lighting, Fleet, Plant, Equipment, and other infrastructure including Flood Prevention, Piers, and Harbours.

Leader of the council Raymond Bremner said: “The planned investment will help to address the ongoing challenges we face in maintaining over 4000 miles of Highland roads and sustaining rural communities.

“A long-term investment programme for roads and transportation will ensure a sustainable approach to investment, contractor procurement, and opportunities to attract match funding from developer contributions or other external funding sources. There will also be significant local contracting and business opportunities and wider community economic benefit associated with the delivery of the Investment Plan.”

The Roads Operational Areas have already taken their 2023/24 programmes to Area Committee. The programmes were presented to committees before the capital budget allocations were known, so they were based on the 2023/24 base capital figures as an estimate. Areas have presented a list of schemes for their expected budget allocation, with additional ones shown which have not yet been programmed. These are intended to be utilised when the additional funding becomes available or a scheme has to be delayed for operational reasons.

An £8.655m strategic allocation from the 2024-25 budget, will be targeted at a further list of road surface treatment schemes, utilising Engineering judgement and local knowledge to determine which projects were to be included. The project list has been compiled in conjunction with each Road Operations Manager and technical staff, to identify those which they could undertake in 2024/25. A diverse approach was taken, looking at urban and rural localities as well as all classes of roads, including where representations from Members or the public had been received.

School projects

A list of school projects were agreed at the Council meeting in May to be progressed to design and tender stage. These are Beauly Primary, Charleston Academy, Dunvegan Primary, Fortrose Academy and Inverness High. All have had masterplans or concept designs prepared in recent years and these are being reviewed in terms of the revised strategic policy for new capital investment, with updated place-based masterplans to be established. However, all could potentially be delivered within 3 to 5 years, subject to the availability and profiling of funding.

• Beauly Primary: New build, with options currently being reviewed.
• Charleston Academy: New build based on a masterplan for the redevelopment of the entire campus including the Community Complex and potential future relocation of
• Kinmylies Primary: Continued development of the initial masterplan. RAAC issues need to be addressed as a priority in line with Policy.
• Dunvegan Primary: New build as part of a masterplan with an adjacent housing development (16 units), a community sports pitch, and a new shared access road. Tenders have been received for the access road and discussions are ongoing with Lochalsh and Skye Housing Association regarding the joint funding of this project to allow for the road to be completed this year.
• Fortrose Academy: Refurbishment and partial rebuild of the older part of the campus.
• Inverness High: Final phase of refurbishment and partial rebuild to complete the overall retrofit programme.

Formal Stakeholder Groups for these schools will either be reconvened or established by the end of September.

Longer term projects

Initial work to develop masterplans for longer-term priorities in the following locations is also proposed:

• Kiltearn Primary School (An assessment of the long-term Community solution is required. If the preferred option were to be a new build on a new site, then site options would need to be explored at an early stage and considered in the context of the Local Development Plan.)
• Kinmylies Primary School (A replacement building was included in the masterplan for the redevelopment of the Charleston campus which could be considered as part of the Charleston project or as a subsequent phase)
• Culloden Academy (The revised capital programme approved in September 2023 includes £3.5m of funding over the next 5 years; £1.5m in 2024/25 (mainly for the new synthetic playing field) and £0.5m in each of the 4 subsequent years.
• Rosebank Primary School Millbank Primary School (A Local Place Plan is being developed for Nairn so there may need to be some early engagement on the longer-term options for primary school provision.)
• Tarradale Primary School (An initial assessment has been carried out for a potential option to acquire a site currently zoned for housing and swap it for the existing school site. Potential co-location opportunities would need to be explored to determine the preferred long-term solution.)
• Grantown Grammar School, Kingussie High School, Mallaig High School, Plockton High School and Primary School, Farr High School and Farr Primary School, Bettyhill.

The full report can be found here.