Two new Black Isle development proposals

20 July 2023

Two potentially significant preliminary development proposals have recently come to light, though neither seems to have reached the stage of a planning application.

North Kessock electric charging and retail facility

The P&J online for 20 July 2023

A site in North Kessock, near Inverness, is earmarked for a £6 million development featuring a super-fast electric vehicle (EV) charging station, convenience store, and food and drink “hub”.

The firm behind the project, Aberdeen-based West Coast Estates (WCE), expects it to deliver 100 new jobs, on top of employment opportunities in the construction phase.

Describing the development as “a new place to shop, eat and recharge”, with well known brands, WCE said its proposals would bring “significant” investment to the area.

Read the full report

The Developer's website   includes links to a downloadable brochure and online consultation form.

The proposed site adjoins the A9 between the access and exit roads to North Kessock.  No planning application appears to have been made so far.  The estimate of jobs to be created seems, as usual, to be wildly over-optimistic.

Anne Thomas writes on the RANK Facebook page
I've just been alerted to this important development proposal. This Facebook page has just gone live and they want responses to the consultation by 28th July! It includes 16 EV charging stations which seems good, but the accompanying letter says it also includes a 'drive thru' which I'd be concerned about, particularly in terms of noise and litter and the convenience store would be in direct competition with the village shop and post office. It also seems to ignore the newly created active travel path which was supposed to be behind whatever development was decided for the site. It doesn't look as if a planning application has been lodged yet, but worth looking at the detail before you fill in the survey.

Site location

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A new Ferintosh distillery?

Bruce Morrison, Secretary of Ferintosh Community Council, has picked up and circulated an email from NOSAS* (North of Scotland Archaeological Society) about a preliminary proposal to establish a new distillery close to what is believed to be the site of the former Ferintosh distillery, romanticised by Robert Burns, near Mulchaich Farm SE of Alcaig (NH 577566).  Bruce writes

In advance of this proposed development, there will be a public consultation meeting in the Ferintosh Hall on Thursday 27th, between 4 and 7pm. It is planned to be a drop-in, a chance to discuss any aspect of the plans with the architect, Gareth Roberts, and a colleague or two. There will be some information panels to show what is proposed, and some feedback sheets for people to give their thoughts, if they would prefer not to give their impressions directly.

There seems to be no planning application or any information about the proposal.  The farmer at Mulchaich is naturally believed to have an interest.

NOSAS website  about excavation of the former distillery site

NOSAS calendar  announcing the consultation.

* NOSAS wishes to make clear that the email was only passing on to its members information it had obtained about the consultation event on 27 July, and that it is not involved in any way with the new distillery proposal.

Chambered cairn and 18th century distillery site at Mulchaich