Landfill badgers 'protected' during building work

Measures have been taken to protect badgers living on a former landfill site during the construction of a new waste-handling plant.

Highland Council's materials recovery station in Inverness's Longman area is nearing completion.

Once open, the facility will sort waste collected in and around the city into materials that can be recycled or made into fuel bales to be burned in waste incinerators.

Badgers are a protected species and the animals live and forage in woodland on the former Longman landfill site.

Highland Council and Scottish government agency NatureScot said measures to protect the creatures had included regular monitoring by an ecologist and a 10m (32ft) exclusion zone around a badgers' sett.

NatureScot said building firm Morrison Construction had also been given advice on how to do its work on the site while minimising disruption to the local wildlife.

A spokeswoman said: "This includes appropriate protection measures and ensuring the relevant licences are in place."

She added: "Protection measures such as badger sett exclusions are unlikely to impact greatly on the project cost or time delays."

The price of the project has increased to £14m, however the additional cost of about £1m has been due to rising costs of building materials.

Football stadium

The landfill site is an area of reclaimed tidal flats on the shores of the Inner Moray Firth.

For decades it was used for dumping household, commercial and some industrial wastes from much of the Highland region.

The disposal of rubbish at the site ended in March 2003 and the land was later restored and landscaped.

Over the years there have been plans to turn parts of it into a country park and other areas into golf courses.

Landfill gas risk assessments have also been done at the site in the past, including ahead of the construction of the nearby Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC stadium.

The football ground's foundations were designed to allow the natural venting of any sudden release of gas.