Restaurant extension decision ‘perverse’

Developers have described a council decision to snub their plans to extend a prominent Inverness restaurant as “perverse” – and may now scrap the proposal.

Highland councillors earlier this week rejected ambitious plans to stretch the Filling Station diner in several directions, predominantly within the city’s central Falcon Square. They claimed the design would conflict with the sanctity of the conservation area.

Scoop Asset Management, which bought the East gate shopping complex last summer in a £116million deal, hopes to include an extension of the restaurant as part of a major revamp thatwould introduce four other new restaurants looking on to the square. The Eastgate Unit Trust had applied to extend the property on to the gable elevation of the adjacent Falconer Building. Councillors were directed to approve all the plans but concluded that the vision for the Clisted Filling Station in Academy Street “failed to protect and enhance” the building’s “rich and diverse cultural and natural heritage”. They, however, approved the proposals for four new restaurant units to face the square.

Scoop Asset Management yesterday issued a statement saying it was “both surprised and dismayed that the application was refused”.

It said it had consulted council officers over the past six months and was confident the amendments amounted to an “attractive and commercially viable proposal which would turn the currently unattractive facade facing Falcon Square into a lively, glazed elevation”.

Pointing out that the redesign had drawn no complaints, it added: “It seems a perverse decision and we will now have to reassess economic viability before deciding whether to appeal the decision, progress a fre sh application or discard our proposals in this regard.”