Boss pledges £650,000 to ease Invergordon's parking woes

A PORT boss has pledged a £650,000 investment to ease parking congestion in an Easter Ross town.

Cromarty Firth Port Authority chief executive Bob Buskie says the cash has been earmarked to create new parking facilities in Invergordon to alleviate problems around the Service Base.

The announcement comes less than a week after it was revealed that a Danish firm is set to invest £5million to establish a rig refurbishment base in Invergordon.

Problems with parking have exacerbated in recent months, partly as a result in growing employment at Invergordon Service Base.

In a bid to address the cause of the parking issues, CFPA bosses undertook a survey of the companies that use the base, examining what the shift patterns and transportation habits are for the hundreds of port workers using the facilities.

The results of this survey were presented at an open evening late last year, where it was claimed that a number of factors had contributed to create a parking headache for residents neighbouring the Port.

Problems cited included a combination of poor public transport services, a lack of residents-only enforceable parking zones, lack of double yellow lines "and a lack of acknowledgement by certain Service Base users of their role to play in policing and managing their employees, for example through park and ride schemes".

Chief Executive of Cromarty Firth Port Authority, Bob Buskie, said: “Whilst the port workers are not employed by the CFPA, the Port promised it would play its part in trying to solve the parking puzzle.

"This announcement demonstrates we meant what we said. This £650,000 will be a major investment by the port and all hinges on a planning application process being successful. It is based on the cost of the purchase of new land, as well as the investment cost to make other land in our ownership available for parking and acceptable from a health and safety perspective.

"This includes lighting, tarmac and the painting of parking bays.”

Mr Buskie added: “We very much hope that the planning process will be concluded positively in the next few weeks.

"It is also crucial that longer term solutions are sought for the lack of public transport and enforced park and ride schemes for port workers. "

But he warned: "This will also only work if the Highland Council has the resources to implement double yellow lines and residents-only parking and the police have the resources to enforce it for the longer term.”

He said that a further open evening will be held once the planning process has concluded and results are known.