The end is finally in sight for residents in a north town who have waited more than 23 years for a new state-of-the-art sports centre.
Work is expected to start in the New Year on the £3million facility in the grounds of Dornoch Academy.
And Highland Council has now invited contractors with an interest in building the complex to come forward.
The sports centre project was previously a community initiative and was taken over by the local authority and included in its capital programme in 2013.
The complex will have four badminton courts and will have changing facilities, a viewing gallery, reception, office and staff base.
A preferred site for the building has been selected on an area of gravel by the primary school and next to a small all-weather pitch.
Yesterday East Sutherland and Edderton councillor Jim McGillivray said he was “reassured” by the council’s progress with the sports centre, adding: “It’s been a 20-year campaign and we are now getting to the point where it will be delivered.
Mr McGillivray said that a big turning point for the project was in 2013, when the plans were aggregated into the authority’s capital programme and backing was given by SportScotland.
Highland and Island Enteprise’s Dornoch town masterplan was launched in the same year, with plans for new accommodation for students at UHI’s North Highland College increasing the market for the facility.
There was an issue in December last year when council officers re-jigged the capital programme but members ensured that it stayed at te forefront of the agenda.
Mr McGillivray added: “I think the previous council chief executive relented to the arguments that nothing had happened in Dornoch since 1963 when the new Academy building was built”.
Provost and Dornoch area community council chairwoman Yvonne Ross was on the original committee which mooted the plans in 1992.
Yesterday she said she was “delighted” that the project has finally reached this stage, adding: “We’ve had a lot of traction on the part of the council and with the stakeholder group meetings in recent months. I would say it’s the most optimistic I have been about the project in the past six years”.
Mrs Ross added that the original idea was for a “sports barn” – an agricultural shed facility – at Bishopfield park in Dornoch to address a lack of sports facilities in the town.
The project was put on the backburner due to struggles securing funding – but was resurrected by the Dornoch Academy parent council in 2007, although securing funding remained an issue for years to come.
The deadline for requests to participate in the preliminary tendering process is September 9 and the dispatch of invitations to tender will be October 5, with a contract expected to be awarded on January 6.
