Long delays and three-mile tailbacks at Belladrum festival

There have been long delays for people trying to get into the Belladrum music festival near Beauly.

People travelling to the event found traffic tailing back more than three miles from the site's entrance.

For the first time, the annual festival began on a Thursday night. It was previously a two-day event.

The festival's organisers apologised for the delays said the problems had been caused by the "sheer weight of traffic" in the area.

About 15,000 people are expected to attend the festival, which was headlined by The Proclaimers on Thursday night.

The Proclaimers were signed up to open the festival

The Manic Street Preachers will headline on Friday night, followed by the Kaiser Chiefs on Saturday.

Long queues to get in occurred throughout the day, but some of the longest were reported on Thursday evening.

Police motorcyclists with blue lights flashing rode up and down the three-mile line of cars, vans and campervans headed for the festival's car park.

Music fans caught up in the tailbacks took to the Belladrum facebook page to complain.

One said: "Turned back for home to Inverness after three hours stuck in traffic."

Another said: "Thursday night has backfired."

Belladrum promoter Joe Gibbs said the festival had got off to a "flying start" on Thursday.

But he added: "We are sorry there were delays in traffic on the main roads in the area of Belladrum. Delays were not due to any problems getting into festival car parks, where all traffic operations ran smoothly.

"The cause seems to have been sheer weight of traffic on the roads. Besides Bella, other events were taking place in the immediate area such as the Black Isle Show and the fine weather brought an ingress into the festival that was more concentrated and earlier than usual.

"After the event we will be discussing with the relevant agencies ways of alleviating this in future years."

Manic Street Preachers will play on the main stage on Friday

Kaiser Chiefs have previously played in Inverness and Strathpeffer

This week is seeing one of the busiest times for visitors in the Highlands in recent years.

As well as Bella, the Black Isle Show - the largest agricultural event in the north of Scotland - was held on Wednesday and Thursday at Muir of Ord not far from Beauly.

The World Orienteering Championships are taking place in Nairn and Forres with many of the hundreds of athletes and thousands of spectators staying in and around Inverness.

Thousands of people will also be attending the Celebration of the Centuries event at Fort George near Ardersier, on the Moray Firth coast between Inverness and Nairn, on Saturday and Sunday.

BBC Alba will show three live shows from Belladrum from Thursday to Saturday with the programmes hosted by Gaelic TV presenters Fiona MacKenzie and Niall Iain MacDonald.

Niall Iain MacDonald and Fiona MacKenzie will host three live shows from this year's Bella