Context 158 - March 2019

C O N T E X T 1 5 8 : M A R C H 2 0 1 9 19 Highlands and Islands particularly financial ones, to deliver the desir- able extent of conservation. The Highland Council, with a land area not far short of 10,000 square miles, is famously the most extensive lowest level of local government in Europe. It has a population of around 235,000, but the population of the other three councils in the Highlands and Islands,Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland, ranges from 27,000 to 22,000. Sparse population, mountains and insularity all pose major problems for the delivery of public services, while also creating an economy very reliant on public sector employment. Research for the Labour Party by the Scottish Parliament Information Centre, reported in The Press and Journal, found that the two authorities which had suffered the most severe cut in public spend- ing per person since 2013 were Western Isles and Shetland, while Highland had also recorded declines above the Scottish average. From Thurso to Portree A reported 250 jobs were shed by Western Isles Council between 2010 and 2018. It is beyond the scope of this short article to trace in detail the impacts on building conservation of these economies. However, we do know that across local government specialist skills have been lost, and service provision has been ‘rationalised’. The necessary professional capacity is stretched by the geography of the Highlands and Islands. For example, Highland Council has 30 conser- vation areas, which include one in Thurso and another in Portree, on the Isle of Skye; they are 200 miles and a four-and-a-half hour drive from each other. Building maintenance is a superficially ‘pain- less’ area for economising, while councils have also sought to divest themselves of properties. There was a previous period in which municipal properties in the Highlands and Islands became surplus to requirements through distant administrative decisions. The reorganisation of Scottish local government in 1975 abolished numerous burgh councils, and instead put in place a system of fewer, larger, ‘more efficient’ councils, leaving many former town halls, typi- cally prominent buildings in small settlements, without a function and de-localising decisions about their futures. It is not only local government that has been forced to adapt practices to fit the imperatives of centrally imposed austerity on a sparsely populated region. A couple of examples from the justice system provide interesting insights into challenges for conservation in this part of Scotland at this time. In 2013–15 the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service closed 10 Sherriff Courts, two of which (Dornoch and Dingwall) were in the Highlands, where the long-term aim was to focus court activity on Inverness, the ‘capital’ of the region. The chief executive of the service was quoted as saying, in the bloodless language of capital city bureaucracy: ‘We believe that instead of investing in all our current buildings we must invest our energy and resources in making better use of technology, including video links and online processes. Investment should be targeted to improve services and facilities for users in a smaller number of court buildings’. The courthouses in Dornoch and Dingwall are both Grade B listed buildings. Thus a combi- nation of new technology and the desire for ‘efficiency savings’ resulted in the closure and sale of historic buildings that were significant contributors to the local townscape, place iden- tity, convenience and economy. The Dornoch Courthouse is located in the main square of the town, opposite the cathedral. The Dingwall