LISTEN: Tilting pier trolls target Inverness officials
Inverness officials bullied online over planned tilting pier
Inverness politicans say they're being bullied online over the city's plans for a controversial tilting pier development.
The city's Provost Helen Carmichael has told MFR News that she has been targetted by critics - suffering "abuse" but insisting that she's "getting on with it".
Highland Council officials have previously confirmed that the outdoor artwork would be built on the banks of the River Ness - opposite Eden Court - by June 2017, if councillors vote to give the project planning permission to build.
That's despite the backlash on social media, and over 2,000-people backing an internet petition to halt the £300,000 project which has already used a fifth of its budget.
Most of the money - 60-per-cent or £180,000 - going towards the tilting pier is either national arts funding or specifically granted on condition it is spent on making sure the see-saw structure goes ahead.
LISTEN: Provost Helen Carmichael tells MFR News about personal attacks she's suffered via social media...
The group behind the proposed landmark is claiming that an official study into the economic benefits of having the tilting pier as a major tourist attraction, has found that £150,000 will be drawn into the local economy every year.
We are being told by officials that there is widespread support for the development, but MFR News can reveal that more than half of the people initially surveyed by Highland Council did not think it was a good investment.
That survey did relate to a different site to the confirmed location opposite Eden Court though.
Now there are fears that Inverness is facing a future arts funding vacuum.
Councillor Helen Carmichael told MFR News: "If the funders start to doubt - that the project may have too many people complaining about it - they begin to wonder...
"The funders could then withdraw their funding and it would go to another city.
"The funding from Creative Scotland and from Highlands and Islands Enterprise was specifically for this tilting pier."