28 March 2019: City of Inverness Area Committee

A Special Meeting of the City of Inverness Area Committee will take place in the Council Chamber, Town House, Inverness on Thursday, 28 March 2019 at 11.30am.

Webcast Notice: This meeting will be filmed and broadcast over the Internet on the Highland Council website and will be archived and available for viewing for 12 months thereafter.

You are invited to attend the meeting and a note of the business to be considered is attached.

Yours faithfully

Stewart Fraser
Head of Corporate Governance

Business

1.  Apologies for Absence                                                                                                  
Leisgeulan

2.  Declarations of Interest
Foillseachaidhean Com-pàirt

Members are asked to consider whether they have an interest to declare in relation to any item on the agenda for this meeting.  Any Member making a declaration of interest should indicate whether it is a financial or non-financial interest and include some information on the nature of the interest.  Advice may be sought from officers prior to the meeting taking place.

3.  Structural Maintenance Programme 2019/20 for Inverness City and Area and future Strategic Priorities for Inverness City

There is circulated Report No. CIA/17/19 dated 26 March 2019 by the Director of Community Services.

The Committee is invited to agree the recommendations as detailed in the report.

Minutes of Special Meeting of the City of Inverness Area Committee held in the Council Chamber, Town House, Inverness on Thursday 28 March 2019 at 11.30 am.

Present:    
Mr R Balfour, Mr B Boyd, Mr I Brown, Mrs C Caddick, Miss J Campbell, Mrs H Carmichael, Mr G Cruickshank, Mrs M Davidson, Mr A Graham, Mr J Gray, Mr A Jarvie, Mrs I MacKenzie, Mr D MacPherson, Mr R MacWilliam, Mrs E McAllister, Mrs T Robertson, Mr G Ross and Mr C Smith.

Officials in Attendance:
Mr D Haas, Inverness City Area Manager, Chief Executive’s Office
Ms T Urry, Head of Roads and Transport, Community Services
Mr J Taylor, Roads Operations Manager (Inverness), Community Services
Mrs A MacArthur, Administrative Assistant, Chief Executive’s Office

An asterisk in the margin denotes a recommendation to the Council.  All decisions with no marking in the margin are delegated to Committee.

Mrs H Carmichael in the Chair

Business

1. Apologies for Absence
Leisgeulan

Apologies for absence were intimated on behalf of Mr A Christie and Mr K Gowans.  

2. Declarations of Interest
Foillseachaidhean Com-pàirt

There were no declarations of interest.  

3. Roads Maintenance Programme 2019/2020
Prògram Càradh Rathaidean 2019/2020

There had been circulated Report No. CIA/17/19 dated 26 March 2019 by Director of Community Services.

During discussion, Members raised the following issues:-

• Noting the assessed Roads Maintenance Programme budget  for Landward wards, the Redesign Board could be asked to identify funds and work towards a redrawing of the formula.  Further thought should be given to identifying other ways of utilising funds to allow for a more effective approach to improving roads infrastructure.  Members also expressed the need for clarification on the cost to do the required repairs on the arterial routes in the City to enable a better understanding of the funding gap.  Academy Street had to be accelerated, a three year wait for repairs was too long, the Inverness City Area Manager advised that he was meeting with the Director of Development and Infrastructure to progress a co-ordinated programme for the improvement of Academy Street.  
• Mrs M Davidson advised that issues to be checked through full Council would include: the reallocation of spare capital, through underspends, to roads; redesign to investigate the link between labour, workforce and the capital programme to ensure the right balance; the possibility of a Highland Seminar to progress allocation through usage and persuade landward councillors that they also make use of roads in Inverness; the drawing up of a co-ordinated work programme to target Academy Street; and insurance that the subsidy from the Timber Transport Fund was used in the best way.  

Members thanked officers for the time and effort undertaken to research the revised report.  

Decision

The Committee APPROVED the revised Roads Capital Maintenance Programme for the City of Inverness Area, noting the changes detailed in 4.1.

The meeting ended at 12.30 pm.