Highland Council could move to £13m office block despite spending £400,000 on renovations

Highland Council could be set to move into a state-of-the-art £13 million office – despite £400,000 worth of renovations having only recently been carried out on its current premises.

A report for next week’s full council meeting – which is set to be discussed in private – outlines a proposal for the local authority to move to Great Glen House close to the former Craig Dunain hospital.

The award-winning £13 million office building is currently occupied by national natural heritage agency NatureScot.

If it were to go ahead, the move would be quite the upgrade for Highland Council currently headquartered in Glenurquhart Road, where parts of its premises date back to the 1970s.

The potential move is described in the report as a “smarter” working project, though no details of costs are given at this stage.

An Inverness “location based review” was previously led through a Scottish Government group, assessing how public sector organisations could better utilise existing space, reduce costs and support net zero objectives.

Public sector working and learning spaces at the city’s Longman House and Great Glen House as well as An Lochran and Solasta House at the Inverness Campus and Highland Council’s Glenurquhart offices were all assessed, the group finding “significant under-utilisation of all offices, particularly Longman House and Great Glen House”.

Ongoing maintenance “liabilities” at Longman House and council headquarters as well as substantial costs to NatureScot due to underutilisation of its offices were also identified.

These issues could potentially be solved and address Highland Council’s “requirement” for a new home, the report explains.

The report presents councillors with three options.

The first would see the Scottish Government agriculture and rural economy team currently based in Longman House – in Longman Road – move to Great Glen House, with Longman House to be disposed of.

However it is stated that option would “leave substantial unused space within Great Glen House”.

Option two would see the council move to Great Glen House – which cost up to £13 million to construct and was completed in 2006 – though the papers add that would not address the issues with Longman House.

An option 2B is noted as the preferred approach and would see the council move to Great Glen House while those in Longman House would move to Solasta House and Nature Scot would occupy space both there and at An Lochran, home to a range of organisations including Highlands and Islands Enterprise at Inverness Campus. That would leave Longman House to be disposed of.

At the meeting on October 29, councillors will be asked to agree that a possible council move to Great Glen House be taken forward “for further appraisal and business case development”.

But the report adds: “The recommendations do not commit the council to any acquisition of any property (and should it be agreed) detailed legal due diligence will be undertaken.”

It was only two years ago that Highland Council spent more than £200,000 on a new video conferencing system for its chamber, the Inverness Courier understands.

And a recent renovation to its reception area and security upgrades were completed just last month.

The work was contracted to Compass Building and Construction Services with a total contract value of £286,000. The work was listed as part of the council’s capital budget monitoring report for August 2026.

The report also states that work has been undertaken on “the opportunity that might be created” for development of the current council site should the move go ahead, “with a number of alternative uses such as housing (between 120-180 units) or other business, culture or tourism uses having been identified”.

And it argues that the preferred option also aligns itself with wider plans for public sector reform announced by the Scottish Government last month.

It adds: “Members are being asked to agree to progress with a preferred option that forms an integral part of recommendations for the more efficient and effective use of wider public sector assets across Inverness.”