Monday, March 11, 2024

"Invitation to pay" to go ahead for Links amenity and splash pad area

Item 6.4.2 of the "Nairn Common Good Fund – 2022/23 Audited Accounts, 2023/24 January Monitoring and General Update, Proposed Budget 2024/25" which went before the Nairnshire Area Committee last Monday 4th of March read:

"Discussions have taken place during 2023/24 with Highlife Highland, #TeamHamish and THC Facilities Management, in an attempt to find a more affordable but effective method of cleaning at the Splashpad in light of escalating costs. Options are being progressed on best value principles to commission THC Facilities Management to carry out the periodic deep cleaning of the Splashpad at a cost of £2,840 per clean. The existing contract with HLH will continue with spray washing weekly and a further deep clean scheduled as required using THC Facilities Management. 

Monthly monitoring of the cleaning will be done by the Nairn Common Good Fund Officer to ensure it remains in good, clean order and reflects positively on the partners and community. 

At the request of a previous meeting of Committee work is ongoing to develop an invitation to pay donation scheme for the NCGF Links amenity facilities proposals will be brought to a future meeting of the Committee."

This now goes through - you can see all this and more in the Video of the meeting embedded below. 


This item has generated a wee bit of debate on the ever popular Nairn Our Town social media page and can be seen here if you have a Facebook account.  

Friday, March 08, 2024

NCFC fans Ground Improvement Fund organises Whisky Tasting and 50/50 draw

There's a 50/50 draw taking place at the Fans' whisky tasting - you get tickets with every contribution via the crowdfunding linked in the embedded tweet below. 

"We are holding a Whisky Tasting on Saturday 6th April 2024, which will raise £750, we would like £1000!!! To help reach our target we plan to hold a 50/50 draw. £5 a square! Everyone will be allocated random number(s) and the draw will take place at the Whisky Tasting."

Monday, February 19, 2024

Gurn twitter account - usually a lot of interesting stuff

We're old media now too, most news in Nairn breaking over on Facebook these days but we still have our moments from time to time. And don't forget that the Tuesday edition of the Inverness Courier carries a lot of Nairn news too from local journalist Donald Wilson.

In the meantime if there's not much being posted here it's worth having a look at the Gurn twitter account. Quite a lot happens in the Nairn twittersphere these days and you can scroll down the wee twitter box on the right hand side as far as you like to see what the latest craic is. You don't have to have an account to look at tweets either. 


Monday, February 05, 2024

Cllr Paul Oldham continues to keep us all up to date: "Haventus are intending to create a £1,000,000 Community Fund to benefit the communities around the port over the next ten years."

Cllr Paul Oldham recently attended a community liaison group meeting down at the Haventus site. He also gives us a fair amount of detail of other information provided by the company  - for all this and more head over to Paul's weekly newsletter. 

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Nairn East Housing Development no more?

Before the proposed development at Nairn East goes ahead it looks very much like a bypass will have to be built. Cllr Paul Oldham outlines it all in an excellent informative article. He says:

"You may also remember that many voices in the ward, lead by Nairn River CC, said we ward councillors should reject the new Plan. We declined to do so for reasons I’ve discussed here before but instead got changes made to it to ensure, in particular, that there would be no new development at Nairn East (NA05) before we got a bypass.

This seems to have been even more successful that we hoped: the Reporters noted that:

The uncertainty regarding the implementation of the A96 dualling and Nairn Bypass project raises doubt over whether development on allocation NA05 is deliverable within the plan period."

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Nairn Common Good Fund Engagement. Provost Laurie Fraser states: "I feel the first two or three of these meetings are just going to be nothing more than an almightly bun-fight"

Our four local Highland Councillors were less than impressed with some of the comments received on a recent cosultation for a proposed "Nairn Common Good Fund Engagement Group". Here at the Gurn we had hoped the tradtional fault line that has been the Nairn Common Good Fund in our local civic life could have been consigned to history. We hope that still happens but the omens don't look good before the engagment group even starts. The conversation on this topic can be seen on the embedded video of when this item was being discusessed at Monday's (22nd January) Nairnshire committee.

 

In his weekly newsletter Cllor Paul Oldham states:

"Before we went ahead with creating this engagement group officers consulted with groups in the town who we thought might be interested in being involved and they reported back on the results of that at Area Committee. I was disappointed with many of the very negative responses and said as much when we got to this item.

Councillor Fraser, who followed me, said that I had summed things up very well and he wasn’t optimistic but he reluctantly said that we should go ahead with this group, and we agreed to do that for two years, with a review after one year to see if we wanted to continue into the second year."

Other topics on Pau's excellent newsletter this week include: Council budget, Area Committee, Regeneration funding, garage rent and roads. We would urge all readers with an interest in local government matters to head over there for a read.

Fines coming for pavement parking, starting February

The Highland Council’s parking enforcement team are reminding drivers that during February they will be enforcing the new pavement parking ban.

The Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 has prohibited pavement parking, double parking, and parking at dropped kerbs and anyone caught can face a £100 fine.

Chair of the Council’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Cllr Ken Gowans said: “Many people face daily difficulties with pavement parking. It is dangerous and frustrating, especially for those with impairments or limited mobility. It can force people to take unnecessary risks. For example, people using wheelchairs and buggies or prams without access to dropped kerbs can be forced onto the road, risking their safety.

“Since December our parking enforcement team have been issuing warning notices to drivers caught breaking the law but during February 2024, they will be taking full enforcement action. Anyone parking on a pavement risks a fine of £100 or £50 if they pay it within 14 days.

“Details about the new regulations have been provided on the council’s website so I urge all drivers to make themselves familiar with the information. We hope everyone will consider others and there will be limited need for enforcement.”

Wednesday, January 24, 2024

Progress on a community newspaper for Nairnshire

Following the well-attended meeting in the main hall of the Community Centre towards the end of last year the Steering Group of the proposed Nairnshire Community Newspaper have been meeting regularly to progress the initiative and are now close to achieving charitable status. The Gurn understands that once this happens then working groups will be set up for various aspects of the Paper - there are already many people willing to offer their skills and experience but there's still room for more as the steering group want to have the widest community representation possible in the administration of the paper.




 

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

Community Regeneration Funding awarded to Nairnshire organisations

Nairnshire Committee Members considered and assessed applications submitted to the area’s Community Regeneration Fund.

The successful applicants were the Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE) (who secured £11,000 for their TeamHamish Nairn Links Regeneration project) and Nairn BID (who secured £5,093.53) for the Nairn Heritage Trail project.

Community Regeneration Funding is an umbrella term for a number of funds that are available for communities/organisations to access in Highland.  It comprises elements of the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund along with the Highland Coastal Communities Fund and the Place Based Investment Programme, both of which are Scottish Government Funding streams to support economic regeneration and sustainable development in Highland.

Councillor Michael Green, Chair of the Nairnshire Area Committee, congratulated the successful applicants and said: “We are delighted to be able support NICE and Nairn BID – these organisations have sound plans in place to deliver projects for the benefit of the local community and have a great deal of backing from residents throughout the area.

“For NICE in particular, today’s award marks the completion of their fundraising for this phase of the project and will enable this to get underway during the Spring.”

£11,000 was awarded to the Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE) for the second phase of the TeamHamish Nairn Links Regeneration.  This project, which is due to commence from March 2024, will involve redevelopment of the area of the Links currently occupied by the existing putting green, crazy mini golf and adjacent banking and grassed areas.  Through a holistic approach, NICE aims to revitalise the existing area and utilise the natural environment to enhance how these areas are currently used, encouraging a more integrated and cohesive purpose for both individual contemplation and social interaction through the creation of a journey of connecting spaces and places.

Meanwhile, Nairn BID was awarded £5,093.53 for its Heritage Trail project, which will replace and augment Nairn’s heritage interpretation boards and create a Heritage Trail, backed up by online resources and interactivity.  The project is designed to help visitors to the area learn more about Nairn’s heritage, while providing local people a sense of ownership and input into the way in which the town’s heritage is presented.