Sandy's Blog
The Townlands Park Story
by Casagrandeblog - 15:59 on 11 August 2013
As Calum Davidson pointed out recently on our Facebook page, the building of Townlands Park in the 1970s was the key factor in Cromarty’s urban development in the 20th century. A few years ago, I extracted the Townlands Park story from the Town Council Minutes of the 1960s and 70s. This is what I found.
The story starts at the meeting of 4 September 1968 when Councillor D. Mackay raised the issue of new council house building. 
The Council’s interest at this stage was in new council housing in the Fishertown, particularly in Big Vennel and Forsyth Place. However, there was another local authority with an interest in the matter - Ross and Cromarty County Council - and the two Councils remained at loggerheads over the issue. In July 1972 the County Council proposed building twenty new houses in Cromarty. The Town Council then said they would build fifty and in September the County offered to build 100!
At this point, Cromarty Town Councillor McBean indicated that he was willing to sell the Station Field for housing (see the image below for how it looked then), and in October 1972 the County said they would buy the land and build the houses if the Town Council would agree to remit its powers. (The Town Council was responsible for housing, but could choose to delegate this upwards to the County). At its December meeting, however, the Town Council decided to go ahead themselves and to appoint Wimpey as the sole contractor. 
The tension between the two Councils was about quantity vs. quality and speed of construction vs. quality. The County Architect felt that Cromarty deserved better than what Wimpey was offering, but a Town Council delegation went to look at Wimpey houses in Inverness and decided that they were fine. Remember that this was when Nigg was being developed, and the Town Council was envisaging the Cromarty population increasing to 1500. They also thought that speed was of the essence.
The first eight houses were allocated in November 1974, and by February 1975 some tenants were complaining to the Council about poor workmanship. A total of 97 new council houses were eventually allocated by the Town Council. Of these, 50 went to tenants from Cromarty and 47 went to incomers.
One controversial area concerned the right of way at the back of the Denny, leading from the Manse to the West Church. The Church of Scotland wrote to the Council to demand protection of this, and the Denny householders were also keen to ensure rear access to their houses. Wimpey agreed to build a 7.5' footpath. What happened to that, I wonder?
Cromarty Town Council met for the last time on 8th May 1975, when it allocated the final batch of houses. Responsibility for them passed to the new Ross and Cromarty District Council, but Townlands Park remains as the Town Council’s memorial. It was by far the biggest project undertaken by them. I’ll leave it to others to judge its success.
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