Nessie niggles over 20 years lead to £1.3m court battle

Published on Tuesday 29 June 2010 17:18

FOR more than 20 years the two businesses have been locked in battle for the tourism pound. Councillors, planners and Scottish office reporters have all been brought into the dispute and now too has a sheriff.

A 1.3 million legal battle has blown up between two rival tourist attractions which operate just 100 yards apart in the village of Drumnadrochit on the shores of Loch Ness.

The operators of the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre - formerly the Official Loch Ness Monster Exhibition - is suing the Loch Ness Monster Visitor Centre - also known as the ''original'' monster visitor centre.

Robbie Bremner has raised a civil action against his rivals, Donald and Gillian Skinner, seeking more than 1.3m for lost profits since 1987.

The Bremner family, which opened the Loch Ness Exhibition Centre 30 years ago, alleges that the Skinners have deliberately sought to confuse the public by using similar names and a similar colour scheme on promotion material to their company.

They also allege that the Skinners have spent more than 20 years deliberately trying to drive visitors away from their business, in a bid to get people through their doors. Documents lodged at Inverness Sheriff Court detail a long-running dispute between the families.

They claims that, in June last year, Mr Skinner ''defaced'' a sign erected by Scotland Transerv pointing to the Official Loch Ness Exhibition Centre.

It is alleged he put a sticker on the sign pointing to his own centre a day after the sign was put up.

Transerv is said to have removed the sticker on 2 July, but later the same day another sticker pointing again to the Skinners' establishment appeared.

While Mr Skinner has admitted stickers were on the sign, he has not admitted responsibility for doing so.

He added that the sign was on his land.

The documents also allege that when the Bremner family put the word ''official'' to its name, in a bid to distinguish itself from the Skinners' business, they then added the word ''original''.

They also claim that a large number of visitors to their centre ''have expressed confusion and concern at the similarities'' between the two operations.

The action also describes the Skinner's centre as being of an ''inferior nature'' because it does not offer he standard of facilities, service or hospitality as the Bremner's five-star VisitScotland centre.

The allegations are strongly denied by the Skinners.

Parties for both rival firms were last night still locked in talks over a potential agreement and the hearing will continue this morning.

Lynn Richmond, for the Bremners, told Inverness Sheriff Court: "There has been some basis of agreement between the parties.

''There may be some fine tuning."

Bobby MacDonald, laywer for the Skinners, moved the case to be adjourned until this morning for talks between the parties to continue.

Sheriff Ian Abercrombie told both parties: "I would expect to see some written agreement.'' As the debate continued inside and outside the court, visitors arrived at both centres some 16 miles from Inverness unaware of the latest developments in the Loch Ness story.

Bill Johnson, 54, who was visiting from Essex with wife Susan, said: "We are a bit surprised to find there were two visitor centres covering much the same thing so close together in a small village.

"But I suppose the monster is a big thing and everyone wants a bit of it."

Retired couple Eric and Ruth Dawson, from East Yorkshire, visited the ''origina'' centre having been to the ''official'' site previously.

Mr Dawson said: "Which is better? I think there is little in it to be honest."

The Loch Ness Exhibition Centre was set up by the late Ronnie Bremner who had a series of run-ins with the owner of The Original Loch Ness Monster Visitor Centre, which, despite its name, was opened in 1987 by Donald Skinner.

Throughout the 1990s the pair were involved in a colourful dispute over their attempts to attract tourists using elaborate signs which often attracted the attention of council planners.

In 1993 one councillor summed up the dispute: "This war isn't doing the village any good.

''If one puts up a big sign, the other tries to go one bigger. Its crazy."

The dispute is continuing with Mr Skinner objecting to two new multi-million-pound plans for the loch side, including one from the Bremner's centre.

The Bremner family plan to spend 2m upgrading a harbour at the Clansman Hotel on the A82.

Proposals include a car and coach park, toilets, picnic area, cafe, shop and jetties and moorings for private boats and canoes, but not jet skis or ski boats. z The facilities are leased to Jacobite Cruises, which carries 100,000 visitors on the loch each year and says it has outgrown the site. Instead, it has lodged 2.3m plans to build a new harbour, car park, visitor centre and cafe a few hundred metres away.

Mr Skinner said the projects could destroy the integrity of the area and open up the loch side to mass, strip development which will spoil the visitor experience.

"This unsightly clutter on the shores of Loch Ness will destroy their dream of a pristine stretch of water where nessie is hiding,'' he claimed.