Inverness Airport Business Park seeking partners
Inverness Airport Business Park is slowly but surely taking shape, and according to the BBC, is looking for additional partners.
I’ve got to admit, I find the development concept to be very exciting, and I’ve included a small image of the plan from their masterplan (PDF) below:
To normal Nairn residents the idea of a business park at Inverness airport may seem a distant event, but I think the impact for Nairn will be significant and positive.
For starters, setting up a business park at Inverness airport will raise the profile of Inverness airport and make it much more of a key business hub in the Highlands. With Nairn right next door to it.
Additionally, the transport development plan includes having a railway station by the airport – which I think is really key and no doubt put pressure on for further upgrades to the A96.
This means either pressure on dualling the A96 between Inverness and Nairn, and potentially even being the catalyst to a Nairn by-pass – after all, it would be ridiculous to encourage industry to a location where transportation is throttled by a nearby small town.
The whole development would make Nairn less a satellite of Inverness as much as a satellite of a growing business link on the airport, which can only help improve Nairn’s standing.
I think the arrival of a railway station is the ace in the hole for Nairn, though.
One of the big selling points for Nairn to those looking to move to the general area is the transport links.
Located on the A96, and with a train station in the town, it means that the people of Nairn have key public transport links via the main bus and rail routes between Inverness and Aberdeen – the two biggest cities in Northern Scotland.
This puts Nairn at an enviable advantage in transport terms – after all, not everyone can drive, and many towns in the Highlands do not have a rail connection. It makes Nairn that little bit more practical for those moving into the area and is a key selling point.
What would be even more of a selling point is if the planned business park at Inverness airport becomes a key commuting concern, because this would mean rather than a need to be located in Inverness, Nairn would become just as relevant as an option for those working at and with the business park.
With a direct link between Nairn and the airport, this would make Nairn especially attractive on top of existing selling points – great beaches, low crime, idyllic setting – and the development of a retail park which includes Sainsburys means that Nairn would also be offer most basic amenities for families.
All of which together really underlines Nairn’s potential – and why it is important that Nairn is seen to encourage the Sainsburys development.
I could see Nairn’s potential as soon as I arrived here – this was my first mortgage and I was worrying about negative equity from a property drop, which had been on the cards for years – but I figured on Nairn being an up-and-coming area that would feel safer to take such a big step with.
According to more recent coverage, Property in Nairn is expected to remain flat rather than tank like in England, but with the business park at Inverness and the retail park development, this could have a very positive impact on Nairn property prices indeed, regardless of economic conditions.
Someone once told me that for Nairn to grow prosperous it needs to attract “high net worth” individuals. In other words, attract the sort of people who can invest in Nairn, who then create a need for further goods and services, and additionally put more retail and tax money into local coffers.
The business park at Inverness airport promises the potential to help make this happen – and in doing so, indirectly benefit everyone in Nairn.
I’m still only a small fish in the business world, but personally, would love to be able to get involved in such a project directly – as a business, and a person of Nairn.
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Some interesting comments in this piece.
It is absolutely true that the Airport Business Park, like the other planned developments along the A96, will have a direct and significant impact on the future of Nairn. That’s why it is vitally important to get it right. Will the planners and developers learn from what happened to Nairn the last time there was a big business development just along the coast? I wonder if the lessons of the Ardersier rig-yard boom have been understood. That decade brought Nairn a property price-bubble, a legacy of utilitarian dormitory housing, and the atrophy of the town as a tourist destination. Nairn won’t attract “high net worth” individuals as residents or visitors unless or until it offers an attractive environment and quality services. It’s not immediately obvious how a business park focused on activities linked with the airport will deliver this – as anyone who has visited Hounslow or Feltham near Heathrow will know!
A first glance at the .pdf plan also suggests that there may be some weaknesses in the development proposal. Years ago the planners blew it first time around in failing to co-locate or link the airport terminal facilities with the railway and existing main road. Looks as if they might be about to do it again.
How so? Three things are essential for successful business zones and for coherent long-term development: 1) transport integration, 2) scope for expansion, and 3) flexibility. The density of suggested building adjacent to the A96 leaves little room for wider roads or better access to station or airport. There seems limited scope for separating HGVs and other business transport from airport-passenger traffic. And what if, eventually,expansion led to pressure for a bigger/better terminal? Logic suggests a new or second terminal ought to go next to the proposed rail station (cf Gatwick). With the business park all around it, there would be a Heathrow-type access problem (with no Underground option!).
And the Moray Firth is also a leisure and tourism destination. That will mean demand for ‘airport hotels’ and similar visitor-oriented services beside the airport. How far will this be separated from – or inserted among – the business units and warehouses?
Enough already. But we need to be careful, and thoughtful, about what we who live in the area wish for.
Good points – especially in terms of airport expansion. I went back to read the documents after posting, and noticed that rather than being a 5-10 year development, it’s a 50 year plan.
On the one hand, this means we’re not going to see a big development take place over night – but hopefully it does allow time for the planners to change as required with any airport expansion.
I think there remains a key difference between the Highlands and South East England in terms of population density and transport links – especially when London is surrounded by airport – Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Stanstead, London City – so I think the positive impact on business development of Inverness airport on Nairn will be more piqued.
However, as you rightly point out, we need the services here anyway. Even though Highland Councillors would rather strip Nairn of any significant in lieu of Inverness – I think there are natural pressures on Nairn to develop and modernise. I can only hope such pressures are intelligently guided, rather than councillors trying to hold back its tide and failing Nairn for it.
2c.
There are many more strands to this debate. This hopeful piece on the airport simply underlines the desperate need (as pointed out in an earlier blog entry on 28 October) for regional planning which acknowledges Nairn’s proper role as a destination and centre in its own right, with its own identity and its own hinterland. Pinning hopes on the growth of Inverness, on the airport business project (or indeed the arrival of Sainsburys!) as the salvation of Nairn is a dangerous illusion.
Someone said that Nairn is the second largest town in the Highlands. It should not be regarded simply as the eastern end of an eventual Greater Inverness (as the current A96 development plan implies). Nor should it become simply a dormitory suburb for Inverness commuters (like Balloch) or a base for airport-business park workers (as it once was for rig-builders). At present, this is the most likely fate of the town.
Nairn needs a coherent development plan of its own which isn’t arbitrarily limited by the Highland region boundary east of Auldearn. A plan for Nairn needs to acknowledge its primary role as a centre for tourism and services, and as the principal coastal resort at this end of the Moray Firth. Its development needs to be integrated with – and to provide facilities for – an area which extends east to Brodie and Forres and inland to Glenferness, Cawdor and Croy as well as being linked to the airport. The flaw in the present A96 Corridor Masterplan (that title is such a giveaway!) is that it is not diversified, not decentralised and not balanced.
If Nairn ends up depending on Inverness for retail facilities, and on developments like the airport business park for employment, it will cease to have any autonomous identity or character. As others (like Iain Fairweather and the Gurn) have said elsewhere, there’s a desperate need for unified and clear-thinking civic leadership in Nairn. At present, there’s a deadly mix of public fatalism (or inertia) and a leadership vacuum. The councillors don’t seem to have a clear vision or agenda. The community councils have a consultative role but no executive powers (and at least one has ceased to exist!). Until the people of Nairn have a unified body which is fully representative of the burgh, and which can actively promote Nairn’s collective interests, their voices will continue to be inaudible, their efforts largely ineffective, and the town at the mercy of decisions and developments made elsewhere.
Nairnbairn with words of wisdom again. The more folk that enter the Nairn blogosphre and get a blast of your thoughts the better!