An Inverness designer showed Transport Scotland his plan for a major junction in the city yesterday at an exhibition aimed at ending traffic misery at Inshes.
Highland Council has teamed up with the government transport agency to unveil proposals to replace the Inshes Roundabout with a traffic light controlled crossroads and create the East Link joining the A9 Inverness-Perth road with the A96 Inverness-Aberdeen route.
Computer design technician David Cook, of Cradlehall, came up with his proposal in response to the East Link route plans put forward by Transport Scotland two years ago, involving a dual carriageway and major interchange.
Now the transport agency has dropped the route, known as Option A, after a slew of “negative feedback” in favour of three new single carriageway options range in cost from £50million-£90million.
Mr Cook said: “I wanted to make the junction work as a kind of roundabout junction as an alternative to the proposed option A.”
He said his design has been assessed by Transport Scotland but is not one of the options on show due constraints such as the required length of slip roads.
But he is now in favour of the cheapest option on show at the Old High Church Hall in Academy Street yesterday.
He said: “Option B in my opinion is a reasonable compromise but it’s not a perfect compromise. I don’t think it can be a perfect compromise because it’s an extremely complex junction.”
Transport Scotland has not declared its preferred option.
Retired hospital worker John Machin, of Inverness, was among those at the exhibition and said he felt Option D was the most advantageous.
He said: “It also has a significant cost, but I do think we need to spend because we have got a problem there.
“Ticking the lowest cost option may not be too clever despite the financial climate.”
Alison Irvine, head of technical analysis for Transport Scotland, said the number of people passing through had been “steady” about 200 people attended the same exhibition at Inshes Church last week.
She said: “We are pleased with the reaction so far. We’ve had a lot of positive feedback. We’ve heard positives and negatives about all options which we need to take away.
“We are pleased with the way that people have come and engaged with us.”
The closing date for consultation responses is July 31.
