Inverness man vows to fight council to save family business from closure

An Inverness businessman is going to “fight tooth and nail” to save his family’s livelihood following the Highland Council’s order to close.

Angus MacKillop is the director of his family-run car sales business – Horsepower Cars in Culloden Moor – which specialises in second-hand vehicle sales, and he says it has been on the go for “15 years”.

The business is located on the same site as the family home and is run on an appointment-only basis.

But after he was granted council permission to build a domestic use garage on the site in 2024, a sea of problems followed.

A site visit was carried out in January 2025 after a complaint was filed with the council about the garage being for the use of the business and not personal.

Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Mr MacKillop show a conversation between the council’s planning team after the visit.

Those who visited the site said it would be “unlikely” the garage would be for anything other than non-commercial use.

However, Mr MacKillop said he was then told by the council to apply for a Certificate of Lawful (existing use) for Horsepower Cars to “regularise” his business.

This was despite him having a trader’s licence issued by the Highland Council “hanging on the wall”, he said.

The document is described on Highland Council’s website as a “formal decision” that would allow his business to continue operating on the premises.

Mr MacKillop then applied for his certificate on December 3, 2025.

But Highland Council refused his application on February 2 on the grounds that he did not supply “sufficient evidence” that the business had been in operation on the site for 10 years or more.

This was despite Mr MacKillop having supplied a VAT registration for the business dated 2011 and receipts from 2016 to 2025 as part of his application, which can now be viewed on the Scottish Government Appeals Division (DPEA) website.

In March, Mr MacKillop was then hit with an enforcement notice and told to close “there and then”, he said, adding: “They didn’t send me any information at all to let me know about the decisions.”

He explained how he “found it (the enforcement order) purely by accident” on the Highland Council website.

After getting his solicitors involved, Mr MacKillop has now appealed both decisions; their argument stated the enforced notice was “procedurally unfair” due to it being issued before the three-month time period for him to appeal was over.

Mr MacKillop said: “If I didn’t take legal advice and I listened to what the council told me, I would have had to close that day and pay everybody off and shut my business down because that is what I was told.

“There are five families working in this business, and if we don’t get this (the appeal) and we have to close – how am I going to make a living? How am I going to pay them? I’ll have to pay them off.”

Both his sons-in-law, his daughters, and his wife are all involved with the business, he explained.

Adding: “They’ve got a child, they’ve all got mortgages to pay, and they’re all heavily invested in this business and have been for a long time.

“That’s the reality, because I don’t have a plan B.”

He believes some councillors have been “forcing the hand” of the planning department to refuse his applications.

“I thought councillors were supposed to support economic growth and development and things like that, but it couldn’t be further from the truth of what they’re trying to do.

“They’re trying to ruin a business and everybody involved with it,” Mr MacKillop added.

As part of his FOI, he was given 80 pages of emails and Microsoft Teams messages between councillors and the planning department about his applications, which he said were “pretty damning” and have been submitted as evidence with his appeal.

But the FOI was only partially completed by the council, and they are withholding over 100 more pages worth of communications, he said.

Mr MacKillop, who has now appealed the partial FOI, said he is trying to appeal the enforcement and certificate refusal with his “hands tied” as he has not been given all the information, due to the partial FOI response.

Describing the situation, he said he has spent the last 18 months being a “punchbag”.

But he will continue to fight the council’s decision “as long as there is breath in my body”, Mr MacKillop added.

Highland Council said it is unable to comment on the claims as the appeal is ongoing.