Council Welcomes Appeal Ruling Dismissing Plans for Invergordon Water Treatment Plant Upgrade

The Highland Council has warmly welcomed a ruling by Scottish Ministers which confirms the Council’s decision to reject a planning application by Scottish Water Solutions to upgrade the existing waste water treatment plant at Rosskeen, Invergordon.

The decision follows a public local inquiry held at Invergordon between 14-16 February this year by Reporter,  Mr Richard Hickman, into an appeal by Scottish Water Solutions against a decision taken by the Council in February 2005 to refuse planning permission.

Scottish Water Solutions wanted to improve  the sewage treatment facilities serving Alness and Invergordon so that raw sewage was no longer discharged to the Cromarty Firth and therefore satisfied stringent EU requirements.

The Council accepted the need to improve the treatment facilities but ruled that the site at Rosskeen was inappropriate.

Mr Hickman said he was in no doubt that the Rosskeen proposal would have a serious and unacceptable impact on local amenity and that the site was a very unsatisfactory location for the new works. 

Residents, visitors to the golf course and burial ground and the wider community would be under a constant threat of the risk of an unintended escape of odours beyond the site boundary.

He said: "Such events would have a serious impact on local amenity, and could undermine the social and economic wellbeing of the town as a whole."
Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Ross and Cromarty Area Committee, was delighted with the ruling.

She said: "This is very good news indeed for the community. The proposed site drew widespread opposition and the Council was very clear in its opposition to the development.  "We felt it would seriously impact on the morale of the community and the chances of attracting inward investment."

Councillor John Connell, Invergordon, agreed.  "No one is arguing that we do not need the most modern sewage treatment works. But they must be located in the right place. Developing the existing site would have blighted development on nearby land and seriously harmed our plans to regenerate Invergordon. This is great news for our area."