Critics of a plan to establish Scotland's largest geographical business district in a West Highland town have accused its organisers of being unaccountable and secretive.
Lochaber could become the hub of a Business Improvement District (BID) with about 1000 businesses from remote mainland areas to the small being charged a levy to help encourage visitors.
But a new group of businesses, Farewell Bid, claims the identity of those who have been approached is being withheld, and that if the Lochaber Living BID succeeds it would cost local businesses £1.8 million over five years.
Vicki Sutherland, a founding member of Glencoe and Loch Leven Marketing Association, said "This proposal will impact on almost every business in Lochaber and will, whichever way the vote goes, split the community."
Mel Macaskill, chair of Ballachulish Community Council, said: "We understand that the levy can be legally enforced against all businesses even if only 13% vote in favour of the BID. This surely cannot be fair."
The steering group of Living Lochaber, which represents other businesses, said around 60% of companies in the Lochaber area would pay less than £200 a year.
Frazer Coupland, chairman of Living Lochaber, added: "The BID Proposal included a six-month consultation period with 1200 businesses in the BID area."
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