NTS to oppose new plan for site of battle

The National Trust for Scotland (NTS) has announced it will oppose plans for a holiday complex at one of the Scotland’s most historic sites.

Fresh plans for the development, near Culloden Moor, appeared back before Highland Council this month, a year after they were refused.

Inverness Paving wants to build a fourstar, £1 million holiday village with 13 lodges, a 100-seat restaurant and cafe and shop at the former TreeTop riding centre in Faebuie, a mileand-a-half from the site,

“I can see nothing especially ‘new’ about this new submission”

just east of Inverness. Now NTS, which owns a part of the Culloden Battlefield near to the development site, has raised its voice to support objectors.

The trust says the battlefield is “sacred to many people” as the place where in 1746 the Jacobite rising led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart was crushed by government troops in the last pitched battle fought on British soil.

Clea Warner, the National Trust for Scotland’s general manager for the Highlands and islands, said: “I can see nothing especially ‘new’ about this new submission.

“The previous application was turned down by Highland Council because it wasn’t sufficiently sensitive to the surrounding woodland, and undermined the conservation area. While the 2020 application appears to suggest additional landscaping, I can’t otherwise see much difference from the preceding 2018 submission.”