Public Engagement

During previous public engagement on three possible site options, which ran between November 2007 and January 2008, two additional sites were identified as being potentially available.

The Highland Council’s Inverness City Committee agreed at its meeting on 17 March 2008 to seek the views of the public on the suitability of all five sites before a recommendation on the preferred site is made by the City Committee to the Council’s  Education, Culture and Sport Committee. The public’s view will be one of the factors taken into account on arriving at this recommendation.

This is your opportunity to express your view and after looking at and reading about the five sites, please take the time to express your views online by filling out our survey here. A public workshop to consider the concept and the five sites in more detail is also being held at the Town House on Wednesday 25 June 2008 at 6.30pm to which you are invited to contribute your views.

You are being asked at this stage to consider the suitability of the proposed sites. Once a preferred site is recommended work will then begin on budget, business, design and marketing planning in order to make a Stage 1 Lottery application. It is anticipated that this might be possible in October 2009. Following approval at Stage 1, a Stage 2 Lottery application, with final business plan and design, would be prepared and submitted, ideally by December 2010, with approvals and tendering decisions by mid-2011 and project completion by 2013.

A comprehensive site assessment exercise was carried out during 2007, with the criteria for selection including: a site that can provide good access; good visibility; and quality spaces. The overall scale of the proposed new gallery and museum is 4,095 square metres: Gallery area – 800 square metres; Museum area – 1000 square metres; with public and servicing areas making up the rest. This is nearly three times more space than the existing Inverness Museum and Art Gallery.

The five selected sites you are being asked to consider are available on the main page. You are not being asked to consider any specific design, but to think about the pros and cons of each of the sites. The site boundaries are highlighted in red and any proposed new gallery and museum building would have to fit on part or all of the chosen site. Each of the five sites does have the capacity to accommodate the scale of development and space required.