Leaderboard

That's just the smokers at half time at the bingo.

Any update on this?

Keeper’s positioning made it a bit too easy as well.

Do Inshes and Milton of Leys Community Council live in the real world? A toxic cloud reaching Raigmore Hospital

It will be just as important to look after cash flow until the point the revenue from the battery farm is realised. Ongoing losses need to be mitigated until that point. ILI’s business model is to develop and sell. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the ‘real’ plan is for ICT to sell the project post-development and maybe split profits with ILI. Not a bad idea given ICT would need to raise the significant at-risk capital to build the project out, but that frames the project as a sticking plaster and not a sustainable venture in the longer term. Still, a revenue injection from such a project is a lot better than nothing and well worth pursuing imo.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle Women will face a somewhat different challenge this weekend – hosting Dutch outfit Leeuwarder Zwaluwen. The match will take place at the Highland Football Academy in Dingwall due to pitch availability, kicking off at noon on Sunday. It has come about thanks to a connection through Caley Jags defender Janina Morgan, who is half-Dutch and has connections with the north second tier outfit – step five of the overall Dutch women's football pyramid.

The only entertainment Sheridan has ever given me was what he once wore on Sportscene!

LOL - that was my scientific approach too.

If only Bannockburn had been 1 year later…

You can't really argue against that statement. I think most of us feel it is a worthwhile and beneficial project for the wider community in general and for the club's finances in particular, but I don't think there's much doubt that it seems to have been a poorly presented proposal.

Following this deferral I'd like to think common sense will prevail and the project will get voted through by the cooncillors after the site visit and more information around mitigations is forthcoming. The relationship, however, between planning committees, council votes and common sense rarely seem to go hand in hand...

Exactly, cos its a commercial area, which, as far as I'm aware aren't under the same noise pollution restrictions as there would be in a residential area, which everyone at the club and ILI have opted to go above and beyond to mitigate as much sound as feasibly possible, not to mention the fact all the businesses nearby have been consulted on the project with no objections, and the nearest houses are outside the area affected by noise pollution if it was just going to be plopped down with no noise barriers.

So if I'm understanding this right, you're against a major investment for the club, that will provide us with a future for the forseeable future, which also benefits the local communities and the greater Highlands, not just in footballing terms, but with clean and renewable energy because you are wanting a field (that you can't even see from any surrounding road or footpath) to look like...a field...while also going off on a tangent to assume that they breezed over all other potential (and very limited) sites within city limits, just cos someone with links to the club happens to have land ownership?

This is so much better than debating football.

Only real differences between that and where the Battery Project will be are that, The Drakies Buffer is a well used area both by locals and that the bit behind the Polis HQ is still used as a farmers field, while the golf course is one giant nothing and The Buffer is also easily visible and accessable to the general public, compared to the former golf course which is entirely sandwiched by a housing estate and the treeline between the road and the driving range. There's also the factor that the project is hugging the back of the Kart Center, and won't need to build a long, winding access road, and won't be taking up any land thats already built upon, frequently used by locals or thats been put aside for anything. Attempting to shut it down is a kick in the teeth for any attempt to bring the Highlands into Carbon Neutrality.

Aye but theres a mahoosive difference between building a brand spanking new housing estate, and hiding some shipping containers in the corner right at the edge of the area where you won't be able to see it unless you throw up a drone or specifically go looking for it. I understand why there needs to be a green place in a rapidly expanding city, but there's not much alternative places to put this thing, and I can't imagine it'd be a popular idea to dump it in the middle of town or in a housing estate. The club and ILI have said that it'd be camoflagued to hell and back, and in a field where very few people would actually use it as a park, I can't imagine there'd be much of a kick in the teeth...

Can only see a typical Neanderthalic response from the Highland Council. Google maps shows the former golf course is MASSIVE and has no development on it whatsoever, and I can't imagine HC are planning on a Central Park copycat any time soon. Rather spend money on random crap like an unwanted wall in the river, but will happily turn down a proposal that, if expanded across the Highlands, can EASILY be one massive step towards Carbon Neutrality...

Yes, I saw that. I got the impression that most councillors want to approve it but as the technical objections had not been addressed by the applicant they felt they couldn't support it today. Also now have time to explain the 'community benefits' (to ICT). Best outcome in the circumstances.

Good post from Stephen. I pretty much agree with that assessment. It strikes me as strange that we have got to this stage and the Club are surprised at the Council planners recommending refusal. I also would have expected that ILI would have had pre-application discussions with the Council which would either have led them to revising plans so that they satisfy the planners concerns, or to prepare a case as to why they disagree with the planners. The objections do, however, seem very minor and one would have thought could easily be overcome with conditions attached to an approval. I'm not sure that Ross Morrison's belated lobbying is going to help or hinder the case. There is no doubting that a technology that makes a significant contribution to meeting net zero targets is to be welcomed and obviously having a steady and significant income stream coming into the Club would be great. But the merits of the development (which are considerable) should be irrelevant with the decision being made solely in compliance with planning policy and regulations. If I were a Councillor on the Planning Committee, I don't think I would take too kindly to have my mail box full of pleas to ignore the advice of the professional planners because of the perceived benefits. It certainly won't help the relationship between the Club and the Planning department. It's a bit like having a goal being ruled offside and arguing with the referee that it should be awarded in spite of it maybe being marginally offside, because it was a good move and deserved a goal. I agree that the planners are probably most concerned about the loss of open space. Again, one can understand that the project only impinges on a tiny proportion of the open space in and around the city. However, if a precedent is set with this, the Council might find themselves under significant pressure to allow other projects on designated open space. For the sake of the Club and all the good community work the Club does, I sincerely hope the project does get passed. If it doesn't, I won't be too surprised. If it doesn't, someone at the club will have some explaining to do.

The key issue is the loss of designated open space and the implications that would have for other applications relating to housing that are coming forward for the old golf course. Even though planning applications should technically be considered on their own merits and therefore can't set a precedent, Council officers will still likely be thinking about how this will affect those other applications. Noise is pretty much a non-issue: these facilities are being consented all over the country with acoustic barriers and mitigation planting which lessens the amount of noise and any effect on properties. The distributor road being so close means that noise is already present in the area, and noise from the battery facility would blend into this to a large extent. It's pretty shoddy that ILI didn't submit a noise assessment up front with the planning application, and only did so after the Council's Environmental Health officer asked for one. Nonetheless, the mitigation features could easily be conditioned as part of an approval, as the chairman has said. The non-expert members of the planning committee are more likely than not to refuse the application for this reason, however. The other issues like biodiversity loss and drainage would be easy enough to overcome as well. It looks like ILI were caught on the hop by a change of planning policy relating to biodiversity in February, and then submitted a pretty poor quality report to deal with the issue (followed by the Council's ecologist being remarkably unhelpful, going by the correspondence on the website). Again though, if the council were being reasonable this issue could be overcome through agreements with officers. Transport is not an issue as these facilities generate little need for trips other than during construction - and the distributor road is a perfectly acceptable construction traffic route. Impacts on property value aren't a planning consideration. My suspicion is that Council officers are most concerned about the loss of open space and its implications for future development at the golf course, so they are trying to load up a refusal with as many reasons for refusal as possible to reduce the chances of an appeal to the Government succeeding. The real issue with the application that was submitted is a lack of a detailed planning policy assessment justifying the scheme, and that makes me wonder if ILI are treating this application as a low priority for whatever reason (probably as there's little profit in it for them). The club must have had positive pre-application discussions with the Council, otherwise I'm not sure where their confidence and subsequent surprise stems from. I reckon they'll actually have a pretty good chance of winning an appeal as the new National Planning Framework is very supportive of developments such as this, but that might take a year and will cost thousands if they want someone competent to handle the process.

The nearest houses are about 300 metres from the storage compounds. The Travelodge is about 50m away. No objections from the nearest residents, office occupiers or Travelodge. Lobbying does work in some cases but is normally done by the applicants (ILI not ICTFC).

23_00497_FUL-Warehouse_13_Limited-2973526.pdf

One of these battery farms has got planning permission 160 metres from my house, I’ll be able to see it from my bedroom window. And looking it up online just now, I’ve just discovered that another one has recently been approved about 300m beyond the first one and that one is even closer to houses than the first. Both sailed through planning. I noticed that one of them is an ILI project and used the same agents and project manager as the ICTFC one - so they can’t be that bad STFU, despite your claim/hope that this is all the club’s fault for using cheap advisors!

Some people love living near the local pub.

Here's an idea, how about coming up with a new project title? If it was now called the TESCO Battery Energy Storage Facility, it would sail through all the planning committee stages would it not?

Here's Oakley's opener on Tuesday night. Sloppy Stuff...

It was not so long ago that the Council was prepared to ignore its policy for open space protection to allow roads to be built (1) from the SDR Eagle roundabout into Drakies and (2) to wipe out a well established equipped play area on the long established Drakies buffer land to serve a spurious housing site south of the Police HQ. The large green shed shown in the photo in committee this morning is not a green keepers' shed. It is the Inverness Kart Raceway building, which was also built on the Fairways open space.

At the last Club AGM, a combination of the BESS system and the opportunities resulting from the stadium being within the new Cromarty Firth Freeport zone were cited as being the things which allowed the accounts to be approved on a going concern basis. In other words, these 2 factors were seen as crucial to the long term future of the club. However, the Club Chairman told the recent Supporters Trust meeting that he was struggling to see any way in which the Club could possibly benefit from the Freeport status. So yes, eggs very much in one basket. He freely admitted that if the BESS project does not get the go ahead then we will be continuing to rely on the largesse of the Directors for a sizeable proportion of the income required to keep us as a competitive full time club. I'm not sure that the Club have any more rabbits they can pull out of their hats in order to diversify the Clubs income streams. It's all very worrying indeed.