Highland Council leader says town centre plans will 'transform the image of Wick'
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Highland Council leader Raymond Bremner has insisted that plans to improve Wick's High Street will "transform the image of the town" – and has taken a swipe at those who complain that the money should have been spent on the roads instead.
He said the town centre regeneration designs, outlined at a Highland Council drop-in session in Caithness House on Friday, will make the area "far more appealing" and emphasised that the funding involved is ring-fenced for this purpose.
Councillor Bremner gave an update this week to the Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council, whose chairperson Joanna Coghill voiced frustration at the "negativity" of some comments on social media.
Highland Council hosted Friday's drop-in event to showcase its plans for the High Street pedestrian zone and the Bridge Street/High Street junction. The improvements are part of the wider regeneration of the town centre and have been developed from ideas drawn up by Sustrans Scotland.
Construction works could start before the end of the year.
Councillor Bremner, who represents Wick and East Caithness, called it "great news" for the town.
“We have worked very hard for five years on the town centre," he told community councillors at their meeting on Monday night. "It was 2018 when [former councillor] Nicola Sinclair and myself went about it on our own initiative."
Councillor Bremner said the local authority at that time "wasn't interested". He said: "We couldn't get the officers to engage with us."
He recalled how input came from the community council and Sustrans Scotland, with the charity producing a series of street redesign visualisations.
"It wasn't about painting the town magnolia," Councillor Bremner said. "These were just simulations that we put forward to give the design concept.
"We talked about transport and accessibility because we saw cars flying through the street. You guys [the community council] measured that and we were quite shocked by that, the speed at which cars were going through during the day.
“But we also had to take on board the fact that businesses would want accessibility for their deliveries.
“All that has been brought into the concept. We knew that we needed to improve the aesthetic look of the town to try and appeal to people to invest , or at least for people to come into the town to have a nice gathering place and social meeting place that was appealing.
“At that time, five years ago, there were many more shops open. There were banks that were open.
"I know that people are saying we need to be concentrating on keeping the shops open, supporting shops and all the rest of it, but that doesn't mean to say that we should not be continuing to be able to secure something that we know could really transform the image of the town and make it far more appealing.
"If it doesn't come to us then it will go to somewhere else and I would be absolutely bereft for that to happen because Wick is more deserving of it, as far as I'm concerned, than many other places.
"And it will not go on roads. It will never go on roads – this is ring-fenced money from government that will be spent in that manner for town centre regeneration because that's a big thing in Scotland. It was in 2018 and it still is today.
"We have now got to stage four where the bid is already prepared and this is supported now by the design engineers as we move to construction.
“We will be absolutely transforming that High Street and we will continue to talk to the businesses. This has been an open forum for everybody to engage.
“I just got the feeling that folk were not actually realising the huge cost effort this is, and I don't know what more we can do. When you open up Caithness House and have it all displayed... It has been on the windows of Caithness House, right in the town centre. The local papers have followed this right the way through.
"It is a long time period to try and join all the dots, that's for sure. Every time that we announce a next stage it's almost as if we're going back to stage one and telling everybody about it brand new.
"Covid came along and exacerbated that.
“It's gone to the Scottish Government and it's ready to go to Sustrans, and we await that decision. If that goes past us, I have not a clue what the next turn will be.”
Referring to social media feedback, Mrs Coghill said: "The negativity online really frustrates me. All these people have got an opinion online but they do not come to meetings, they do not come to see the information that is out there.
“I just find it really frustrating that there is so much negativity.”
Provost Jan McEwan, another Wick and East Caithness member, said: “The council can't put people in shops.”
