A row has erupted over proposals to take away precious riverside parking spaces that were only recently installed.
Five of the 11 pay and display bays in Huntly Street could be scrapped because of “over-capacity,” according to council officials.
The spaces were created during flood alleviation works.
They could disappear as a result of a review of the city’s entire portfolio of 4,178 designated parking spaces.
The bays features on the agenda for tomorrow’s (THURS) city committee meeting. And the issue is likely to go out to public consultation.
The research concluded that while the 11 Huntly Street spaces are highly used they were “not operating at full capacity.”
That has incensed local guest house owner and Park Community Council chairman Richie Paxton.
He said: “The whole of the community had to fight Highland Council to get these spaces reinstated. They wanted to remove 105 and we got 79 back.
“To take five away is ridiculous. There is precious little parking as it is in Inverness and I don’t care what they say, I’m not prepared to accept this.”
He said he was trying to galvanise support from all neighbouring community councils.
“Another issue,” he added, “is the no-left-turn at the top of Huntly Street. It’s ridiculous and there was no consultation on that.”
Highland Council’s monitoring, over the summer, found that while spaces on Ness Walk, Church Street, Raining’s Stairs and the Crown Car Park are apparently gold dust, at least two city centre car parks – on Glenurquahrt Road and at the cathedral – are half empty much of the time.
The committee will consider an overhaul of parking information city-wide based on new signs to highlight the availability of parking on the west of the River Ness at weekends.
An officer’s report says there are unoccupied spaces in permit parking areas on Huntly Street and Wells Street, and an opportunity to reallocate or introduce combined pay and display/permit bays elsewhere in the city centre.