A BONNIE Prince Charlie impersonator joined a protest against the building of 16 new homes near the historic Culloden battlefield site.
Around 50 people took part in the demonstration yesterday at the battlefield, near Inverness, where the Jacobite uprising of 1746 was defeated. Opponents to the development fear that the construction of new properties around 400 metres from the centre of the site will damage the setting of the field, where more than 2000 men lost their lives in what turned out to be the last pitched battle fought on British soil. They are also concerned it could potentially lead to further development.
Colin Williamson, spokesman for the campaign group, said: "There is a lot of frustration and anger but it was a very moving and passionate event. Our policy is that we will fight on until we can fight no more."
Mr Williamson said that one protestor had travelled from Canada to take part in the event. "It shows the depth of the passion", he added.
Highland Council had initially turned down a planning application to build the new housing estate near the battlefield. However the developer, Inverness Properties, had an appeal upheld by the Scottish Government.
The council has indicated that it will not challenge the decision in the Court of Session after its earlier stance left it with a bill of £11,000 when it had to pay the developer's cost of bringing a successful appeal. A petition against the development has attracted almost 17,000 signatures. Historic Scotland has not objected to the planning application.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article