Caithness councillor Struan Mackie to officially call for break up of Highland Council
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A Caithness councillor will today formally call for Highland Council to be broken up at a full meeting of the local authority.
Struan Mackie, a Highland councillor for Thurso and Northwest Caithness, has tabled a motion which has been backed by councillors Jim McGillivray (East Sutherland and Edderton) and Andrew Baxter (Fort William and Ardnamurchan).
The motion brands regionalism a “failed experiment” and calls on ministers to “return local authorities to their most localised form possible.”
It asks the minister for Local Government to order a holistic review of the local authority area.
The motion to go before the council on Thursday states: “The regionalisation of councils has been a failed experiment and a singular unitary authority for the Highland region does not, and has not, served the people of the Highlands effectively and fairly.”
It continues: “Whilst some 13 local government areas maintained their councils, such as Clackmannan and Moray who both have smaller populations than our own, the current arrangement for the Highlands is neither equitable nor sustainable.”
Announcing the motion on social media, Mr Mackie took aim at what he sees as an Inverness bias.
Mr Mackie highlighted the large infrastructure investments in Inverness though the city region deal, which he claims has “shortchanged” rural Highland.
By contrast, Mr Mackie says the council contributes only £35,000 annually to the Caithness and North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership, an umbrella group set up to stem population decline ahead of the Dounreay decommissioning.
He said: "Regionalisation of local government has left rural communities like Caithness behind and it is clear that there is no reversing this failed experiment.
"Whilst the growth in the city of Inverness has yielded vast public investment in council-provided facilities such as housing, infrastructure and roads, rural and fragile communities such as Caithness, Sutherland, Ross-shire and Lochaber have been left to fight for the scraps.
"Due to this imbalance, strategic investments such as the Inverness City Region Deal left us short changed and overlooked.
"In the past, Caithness was designated as a 'priority area', due to the need to diversify our economy and stem population decline. Despite these challenges being more important to tackle than ever before, this designation is no longer used or acknowledged by the Highland Council."
