Highland Council

Highland Council, local authority for the Highland region

Highland Council is the local authority that manages public services for the Scottish Highland region. Its website serves as a portal for accessing procedures, information and resources for residents, businesses and visitors to the area. The council structures its activity around areas such as benefits and money help, bins and recycling, registration, business and economy, community and living, council and government, Council Tax, environment, Gaelic culture, health and social care, housing, planning and building standards, roads, transport and parking, schools and learning, and tourism.

Procedures and services for residents

The service catalogue includes school and nursery enrolment, payment for school meals, reporting missed bin collections, buying garden waste permits and finding recycling centres. In planning and building standards, the authority handles pre-application advice requests, building warrants and planning applications. For roads, transport and parking, citizens can report road faults or defects, pay parking fines and apply for a blue badge. In housing, it manages applications for council housing, payment of council rent and repairs in council homes. Council Tax can be paid online, discounts can be applied for or changes in circumstances reported.

Citizen services and contact channels

General telephone enquiries are available Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 17:00, unless otherwise stated by service. There are specific lines for enquiries about household bins, blue badge and bus pass, Council Tax and benefits, elections, environmental health, garden waste permits, housing and homelessness, licences, payments, and planning and building standards. Some services have particular hours: garden waste permits close at 16:00, while housing and homelessness and roads, flooding and street lighting open at 8:00. Outside office hours, at weekends and on bank holidays, there are emergency teams for housing and homelessness, public buildings, registration, roads, parks, flooding and street lighting, and social work. British Sign Language users can contact through the Contact Scotland BSL service.

Education, Gaelic culture and environment

In education, the council offers information about Gaelic education, its Gaelic Language Plan and registration for Gaelic classes. On the environment, it publishes its climate change and net zero plans and allows reporting of noisy neighbours or bonfire and smoke problems. The community and living section helps find public toilets, report damage to public open spaces and apply for grants or funding.

Business, tourism and strategic projects

For businesses, the authority manages payment of business rates, applying for or renewing licences and support for starting a business. In tourism, it offers information on visitor attractions and membership of the motorhome and campervan scheme, which includes overnight parking at designated car parks and free access to showers and changing facilities. The Highland Investment Plan (HIP) is a £2.1 billion, 20-year capital investment programme to improve schools, roads and local infrastructure throughout the region. The North Co-Investment Fund supports employers seeking to expand the regional workforce and address skills gaps. The council has opened a 12-week consultation on a proposed visitor levy and launched a call for ideas survey to gather ideas to inform local policies, development requirements and placemaking priorities in the new Highland Local Development Plan.

News and institutional activity

Recent news includes the launch of the winter service, which starts on 14 October and covers, according to its policy, 6,787 kilometres of roads under its responsibility; a fire at Ballachulish Primary School; a consultation on the disposal and change of use of Common Good land at Dornoch Links Beach Car Park, carried out under the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015; and a blue-green algae alert at Loch Migdale. Full results of the Ward 3 Wick and East Caithness by-election have also been published.