Arts, Heritage, Culture and Sport

| Care in the Community | Sustainable Communities |  A Clean Environment |
| A Planned Culture of Enterprise and Growth | A Skilled and Confident Highlands |
| Arts, Heritage, Culture and Sport | Gaelic Language | Improved Transport and Connectivity |
| Children and Young People | Corporate Objectives for The Highland Council |

Highland Lights Marks Close of Highland 2007

The curtain will come down on the highly successful Highland 2007 celebrations on Saturday 12 January 2008, the eve of “An t-Seann Bliadhn’ Ùr” (The Old New Year), with a spectacular firework finale at the Kessock Bridge.

Together with the Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the Council has been the major funder of the year Scotland celebrates Highland culture and is delighted that the event will end on such a high note.

Highland Lights is a magical, musical torchlight procession which will begin just below Inverness Castle and will wind its way towards the Kessock Bridge for the first ever pyrotechnic show to take place from the bridge!

Highland Lights is one of the final events in this year when people around Scotland have been celebrating the unique and special nature of Highland culture.

A programme of many hundreds of events, including over six hundred supported directly by Highland 2007, has attracted visitors to the area throughout the year, giving all of us the opportunity to ‘wow’ them while they were here.

The events programme has also attracted huge media attention with the Celtic Media Festival, the Fort William Mountain Festival, the O’Neill Highland Open, the Adventure Racing World Championships, UCI Mountain Bike and Trials World Championships, the Baxter’s Loch Ness Marathon and the Highland Archaeology Fortnight being just a few of many drawing their own individual media attention and promoting the Highlands and Islands to a broad audience.

At the same time, young people in the Highlands benefited as schools enjoyed their own distinct programmes of activity chosen from a menu offered through Highland 2007, reflecting the cultural interests of the young people in their area.

Highland 2007 has been a unique project combining the efforts of the public sector, private business partners, national agencies and all of us living in the Highlands and Islands.  It involved all of us working with a shared objective – to use this year to promote the region as a great place to live and to visit and to develop a cultural legacy for future generations.

New Leisure Centres for Grantown and Nairn

Grantown and Nairn are both celebrating the opening of state of the art leisure centres.

The Craig MacLean Leisure Centre is providing Grantown with a splendid new facility which caters for the needs of most sports enthusiasts in the area.  The Council contributed £950,000 towards the £2.4 million cost of the centre, which is named after the cycling champion who hails from the town.

And at Nairn, HRH the Princess Royal recently opened a £3.6 million new arts/leisure complex which features a main hall with seating for 300, multi-purpose meeting rooms, a pre-school nursery, music room, photography darkroom, offices and youth café.  It is hoped the redevelopment will be a catalyst for town centre regeneration.

EDEN COURT

The Council has warmly welcomed the reopening of  Eden Court, Inverness, following its major refurbishment and extension. We own the theatre and contributed a total of £3.95 million, including £1 million from Inverness Common Good Fund, towards the £22.3 million cost of the redevelopment. We also fund the successful Out of Eden dance and drama project.