Town Hall meeting kickstarts a new vision of Wick – £2.678m investment in the town
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A meeting in Wick Town Hall on Monday evening provided a chance for Highland Council to update the public with its progress on the redesign of Wick town centre.
Members of the public along with representatives of the Royal Burgh of Wick Community Council, Wick Development Trust and council officers attended the event to hear of the plans for taking the town centre street design project forward to the next stages and to prepare the final bid to secure the construction phase to be submitted by March 2023.
Wick and East Caithness councillor Raymond Bremner, who chaired the event, reported that a series of "ancillary works" were due to take place ahead of the main proposals that will see a revamped town centre.
Councillor Bremner said: "I'm passionate about this and hate when people talk our area down – people should understand we are worth something. The community council and Wick Development Trust know some of the figures involved in this project.
"There is a figure of £250,000 from sustainability and feasibility studies along with Sustrans' engagement over an 18-month period. To get past stages three and four and on to the construction phase will be another £150,000.
"The Riverside car park was £120,000 funding we got and the bus stance redesign was £15,000. The Whitechapel toilets will come in at a quarter-of-a-million pounds – when you want a facility like that then you need to spend that amount."
He went on to calculate a final figure which included money from HiTrans and the work done to demolish buildings on High Street. "If you add all that up it comes to one million and seventy-eight thousand pounds. I don't think that's bad as we didn't have a brass farthing three years ago. Hopefully, the next investment will come through this year. The construction phase is £1.6 million and by the end of it all Wick will have had an investment of £2.678 million."
Project manager Mark Greig said: “I would like to thank all those who attend the form we held last night. The purpose was to re-engage the community with the project as, due to Covid, it had sat still for so long after the initial concept design engagement sessions took place. We are delighted now to be able to start working on the design process and will continue engagement with the project stakeholders and the community as it develops.
"We are in the process of setting up a dedicated mailbox for questions along with a project webpage, so anyone unable to come to the Forum can be updated. We will issue details for the mailbox and web page once we are ready to go live.”
He added: “This is an exciting time to be able to work collaboratively with the community and we will bring more information to you as it develops.”
Part of the redesign proposal involves a new vision of traffic management along Wick High Street and how bollards would help stop vehicles from illegally accessing the route via Market Square.
Cllr Bremner said: "A radar survey that was in place showed that there were almost 1800 vehicles going through in a week and that was off-season. This is useful information for showing how a system of bollards would work and where they should be situated in a new plan regardless of the temporary measures we can do just now."
The councillor added that Covid had failed to seriously impact the work and that the Sustrans project "has been a long buy-in for us". In summing up, he said: "Being able to secure and deliver a major project takes a lot of time, effort and money.
"With the bid for the extra finance being successful, we have been offered an opportunity to start the engagement and consultation process again and have the chance to finally secure and deliver the transformation that the town centre needs for locals and visitors alike.”
