It was shown on another forum that the travel issue was negligible. It may even have been slightly in favour of the HL, I can’t remember. Their main complaint was that most of their players come from south of Brechin, not the distance to matches.
Edit - here’s some details
Mileage chart
Now the HL Gentleman’s Club has been dragged into the 21st century, it won’t take long for this travelling to decrease. Say Fort or Lossie are relegated and replaced by Banks o’Dee or Lochee Utd. Or both, or Vale replaced by Forfar WE.
In any case, I don’t believe the clubs voted on this at all. There’s a line across the centre of the Tay Bridge which marks the HL/LL boundary and afaik it’s the SFA that set this. There’s a strong argument that the line should be even further south as the HL area has the same number of clubs at tier 5 as the rest of the country although it only has about 15% of the population.
The colts decision stinks though and we can hope it is abandoned after a season, as we were continually assured…
Edited to add - apologies @Robert , there was a vote, but it was to Brechin’s proposal bribe their way into the LL. Not sure whether the SFA would have sanctioned such a move?
Apparently the SPFL put pressure on the LL chairman, hinting of withdrawal of Challenge Cup places etc.
Nobody comes out of this with much credit.