Highland Council has appointed main contractors for the first projects to be delivered under its new £2.1bn Highland Investment Plan (HIP), marking a significant step forward in one of Scotland’s most ambitious long-term capital programmes. Morgan Sindall, Morrison Construction, Robertson Group and Ogilvie Construction will work on seven key multi-million-pound projects across the region, spanning communities from Thurso to Inverness.
The HIP is a £2.1 billion, 20-year capital investment programme led by the Council to deliver improvements to local infrastructure and services. Funding will be drawn from a combination of capital investment and a dedicated annual allocation of 2% ring-fenced Council Tax revenue. The programme includes £750 million of investment scheduled over the next five years, underlining the scale and pace of the initial delivery phase.
Central to the Highland Investment Plan is the development of community hubs known as Points of Delivery (PoDs). These facilities are intended to support the creation of a more integrated public estate by combining schools, offices, depots and partner services within single sites. The model reflects a strategic shift towards consolidated, community-based provision, designed to improve service accessibility while rationalising estate management across the region.
The first projects to have preferred main contractors appointed under the programme are Beauly Primary PoD and Charleston Academy PoD, both awarded to Morgan Sindall; Dingwall Primary PoD including St Clements School and Tornagrain Primary PoD, awarded to Robertson Group; Fortrose Academy PoD and Thurso PoD, awarded to Morrison Construction; and Inverness High School PoD, awarded to Ogilvie Construction.
The appointments enable the contractors to engage at an early stage in the consultation, design and pre-planning phases of each scheme. Early contractor involvement is intended to support buildability reviews, cost certainty and programme alignment before projects progress to formal planning and construction stages. This approach is consistent with contemporary public sector procurement strategies that seek to reduce risk through collaborative development rather than sequential tendering.
Convener of the Council, Cllr Bill Lobban, said: “The HIP is a ground-breaking and innovative long-term infrastructure investment programme, which will create transformative change over the next decade, With these contractors now appointed, we can move to the next phase of our planning, including further engagement with our communities and design and pre-planning activities.”
The preferred main contractors will join established HIP project teams that already include architects NORR, Holmes Miller and the in-house Highland Council Design & Construction team. A wide range of multidisciplinary consultants are also involved, including Currie & Brown, Doig & Smith, Turner & Townsend, DSSR, Goodson Associates, Brown & Wallace, AtkinsRéalis, Fairhurst, Rybka, Harley Haddow and Etive.
Together, these teams will progress the initial tranche of PoD projects through design development, community engagement and statutory approvals. Given the geographic spread of the Highland Council area — one of the largest local authority regions in the UK — logistical coordination and supply chain resilience will be central considerations as schemes move towards construction.
The Highland Investment Plan represents a long-term commitment to renewing public infrastructure across the region, with education provision forming a core component of the early phases. By structuring the programme around integrated community hubs and securing contractor involvement at the outset, the Council is seeking to establish a delivery model capable of sustaining investment over two decades while maintaining flexibility to respond to evolving service requirements.
The appointment of Morgan Sindall, Morrison Construction, Robertson Group and Ogilvie Construction to the first wave of projects signals the transition of the HIP from strategic framework to active development, with detailed design and stakeholder engagement now set to shape the next stage of delivery across the Highlands.
