Minor alterations have forced a Highland community to take their plans to rebuild their fire-damaged health centre back the drawing board.
The Cill Chuimein Medical Centre in Fort Augustus was completely destroyed by a devastating fire in October 2015.
The Fort Augustus and Glenmoriston Community Company has managed to raise more than £700,000 to fund a rebuild – and last year obtained planning permission for the work.
But now they have had to reapply for permission because of minor alterations to the design, including moving some of the windows and doors to fit with current NHS guidance.
The community company has insisted there is no major changes and have said they are hopeful the revised plans will be quickly approved to allow them to start work.
Chairwoman Linda Whiteside said: “The design of the new Fort Augustus Medical Centre had some minor variations to the previously approved plan, these are usually dealt with by the planning officer under delegated powers but as it in the conservation area of the village the planning officer asked for it to be resubmitted.
“There is no fundamental change to the design just minor variations and we are hoping that the planning officer can deal with this quickly as we do not want it to delay our timescale for starting to construct this building.”
It is hoped that work could start in mid to late spring.
Fort Augustus lost its medical practice in the devastating fire which ripped through the building on a Sunday afternoon.
Nobody was injured but the building was destroyed.
The village’s GPs have been based in temporary accommodation in the Telford Centre since the fire.
The new building will house the GPs as well as other medical services.
These could include a dentist, podiatry and physiotherapy.
The community company launched a massive fundraising appeal to raise the funds – with money coming from a number of sources.
These have included community benefit schemes such as the one run by Falck Renewables and the SSE Glendoe Hydro Scheme.
Highland Council also donated money as did the Scottish Land Fund, while the Glengarry Trust and the local GPs also pledged financial support.
