Badenoch and Strathspey

Badenoch and Strathspey is a management area of the Highland Council, which is the local government council covering the Highland council area of Scotland. The management area is represented by an area committee of the council. This year, 2007, however, the management area is being absorbed into the new Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey corporate management area of the council. Also, Badenoch and Strathspey is a former local government district, which had its own district council within the former two-tier Highland region, from 1975 to 1996.

The district was created, under the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, as a one of the eight districts of the Highland region of Scotland. The same legislation abolished counties and burghs as local government areas, and the Badenoch and Strathspey district was formed by combining the areas of the burgh of Kingussie and district of Badenoch from county of Inverness with the district of Cromdale from the county of Moray.

The traditional area of Strathspey was thus divided between the Highland region and the Grampian region.

In 1996, under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994, the region became a unitary council area and the districts were abolished. The Highland Council, as the new unitary authority, then adopted the areas of the former districts as management areas and created area committees to represent them. Since 1999, however, management and committee area boundaries have been out of alignment, as a result of changes to ward boundaries. The area committee represents five out of the councils 80 wards, each electing one councillor by the first past the post system of election.

Ward boundaries are changing again this year, 2007, under the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004, and the Badenoch and Strathspey management area is being absorbed into the Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey corporate management area, which is one of three new corporate management areas covering the Highland Council area. The corporate area covers nine out of 22 new Highland Council wards, each electing three or four councillors by the single transferable vote system, a system designed to produce a form of proportional representation. The total number of councillors remains the same, and the Inverness, Nairn and Badenoch and Strathspey corporate area covers nine of the wards, including the Badenoch and Strathspey ward, which elects four of the 34 councillors councillors elected by the wards of the corporate area.

See also