Deveron goes on the charm offensive
Deveron are pushing on the charm offensive to woo Nairn residents with their revised plans for Sandown, mobilising their Public Relations company, InvictaPA, into a mass leaflet drop across the town.
The leaflet seeks to assure residents that this is a multi-million investment that will deliver hundreds of jobs, provide energy-saving homes in a new standard in urban design, as well as boost business and tourism.
The claims are so joyful it takes two full sides of A4 to detail the plans for the development.
And then it includes a copy of the development plans.
My scanner is funky, so I’ll link to the copy at the Gurn – and make the following caveat – the key is missing from the Gurn’s copy, and that all of the blue buildings are three storey buildings, and the big red ring is a four-storey construction.
Looking at the plans close up I suddenly realise the scale of the development.
Business centre, community centre, civic square, wetlands park, and over 500 properties. This is not an expansion of the town, but instead a whole new village attached to Nairn.
The realisation that this new village will be dominated by three and four-storey buildings underlines the serious concern that this is not in character with the rest of Nairn – or at all with the general “Inner Moray Firth/A96 Corridor” area.
The focus on these and “affordable housing” suggests suggests that the danger is we could be talking about a “new style” council estate the likes of which were popular in England in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and have been a headache for English authorities since. A mini Milton Keynes for the Highlands.
Still, considering that Deveron offered £14 million for the land at the height of the credit boom, you can see why the company may be trying to push for maximum revenue development per square foot of land on an acquisition that may now seem overpriced since the collapse of the UK property and land sales markets.
Here’s another concern as well – just in case anyone’s forgotten, Cawdor Estates are also looking to put in place their own major development directly beside it, with residential housing and new schools planned. You can see the PDF master plan for that here, which notes the Sandown development in brown.
What I don’t see being addressed is what synergy will exist between these two developments, and Nairn itself.
All the retail development is focused in the centre of the current town of Nairn, with retail expansion planned for the east of the town. And yet, here we are looking at major westward expansion with little provision for amenities.
In a sense there’s a new nucleus being developed a mile out from the existing high street – but without apparent planning for the service infrastructure to serve this? Sure, schools, leisure, business and community centres – but what about retail planning?
Even if there is retail planning for the new “civic square” on the Deveron development, what does the development of Nairn as a two-nucleus town bode in terms of further residential and business development?
And how integrated is the tourist planning? After all, Deveron have a “wetlands park” set aside a new leisure centre, yet in the Cawdor plans, the “Tourism and Heritage centre” is set up at the very far north-west of the overall development, not apparently connected to anything, and only accessible via a drive through a housing estate and past a couple of new schools.
We haven’t even mentioned transport either, as of all of this does seem to presume the existence of a by-pass around the existing Nairn bottleneck for the A96. And with a single entrance/exit road out of the Deveron development, and a presumption that the exist single lane at the back can cope with increased traffic along the seafront road, it seems that transport issues haven’t really been thought of at all.
To be clear, I think the idea of developing the west of Nairn is a great idea, and a business park sited on the existing plans is exactly what I would have suggested myself.
But there remain a number of concerns to be asked – not least where’s the joined up planning in all of this?
In the meantime, thanks to my press interests I’ve managed to get on the guest list for the presentation next week, so hopefully I can innocuously raise of some these questions directly to the directors of Deveron.
UPDATE: No, Deveron just cancelled on me. Apparently, the presentation is only open to representatives of different stakeholders in the Highland Council and related government bodies, and they won’t allow any press on board. In other words, this is a marketing presentation being directed solely at our representatives to woo then into accepting the proposals. It remains important to ensure that this isn’t simply an attempt to steamroll the development through the decision makers.
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My Nairn Blog- Record wet summer for Scotland
- VJ Day tribute at Fort George: Colossal Celebration of the Centuries
- Nairn on Bing Maps
- Cloned cows at Inverness?
- Rosebank School deputy dies in horse fall
- Inverness explodes!
- Harbour boats burned
- Highland Aviation Museum gets Nimrod
- New flats to replace Lodgehill Clinic?
- Highland Green Party – still very out of touch
Yep, I got back from a few days away to find the latest PR leaflet from Deveron in my letterbox. Their plans ought to be ringing alarm bells all over town.
The analysis and comments in this blog and the earlier “Sandown-farce” piece are cogent and compelling. There’s a real need to galvanise public awareness and concern about what is being planned…
Aux armes, citoyens!
On this matter i refuse to remain anonymous. My name is John Hart and i live on Sandown Road so I have a vested interest against the Deveron sprawl. But I return to my objections submitted against the outline application regarding density, which totally contravenes both the Local Plan (130 houses) and Highland Council’s guidelines (230), issued to bidding developers.
I am a complete cynic and I do not believe that Deveron would have submitted an outline plan and then re-submitted it without changing the density, without having had a “wink and a nod” from Highland Council. Why do I think this? Highland Council, needs the money to pay for the Nairn Community Centre; Nairn Councillors persuaded HC to lend the money for the Centre, against payback from the sale of the Common Good Lands that is the Sandown site; Nairn Councillors are trustees of the Common Good Fund; Deveron is paying over the odds for the land (before asset prices fell recently) so and as a quid pro quo has too maximize return so goes for maximum density, knowing that HC might shave maybe 50 houses of it to satisfy “local community concerns”.
The above equation of factors has only one common factor: conflict of interest. Why didn’t Highland Council have a number of developers competing for the right to build on the site? Did HC go to open European tender to widen the competition? None of these questions have been adequately answered BUT they will certainly be raised when HC refers the development plan to the Scottish Government for adjudication and/or full enquiry as the development contravenes the Local Plan, as indeed they must, having set the precedent with the Sainsbury’s application.
There are regular Suburban Community Council meetings on this subject and they do a great job but there is a lot of concern outwith their area on this subject. It would be excellent if someone would organise a public meeting so we can get our act together as a town.
John, maybe you and some of the other folk up there that have been researching this might like to give a presentation to the public?
Nairnbairn; ‘ils ne passeront pas!’
There are regular Suburban Community Council meetings on this subject and they do a great job but there is a lot of concern outwith their area on this subject. It would be excellent if someone would organise a public meeting so we can get our act together as a town.
John, maybe you and some of the other folk up there that have been researching this might like to give a presentation to the public?
Nairnbairn; ‘ils ne passeront pas!’
PS John – this really is a specialist subject worthy of its own blog?
I can agree and sympathise with much of what you have to say Brian but on one area I totally disagree and that is your comment about another Retail Park. This is the last thing Nairn needs situated in a housing development and is at odds with how a seaside community could or should develop. It is worth pointing out that the present business/retail park at Balmakeith has taken years to achieve the standard/level of occupancy and I have asked Deveron several times to give information on the type of businesses they envisage taking up occupation on this proposed site. I also asked Deveron’s architects what would happen if no-one showed an interest in taking up any of the sites on the business park, would this space perhaps be converted into more houses. They, of course, couldn’t possibly comment.
It’s okay Samantha – I think a business park on the west of Nairn is a good idea to in terms of transport links (not least to the airport), especially if it caters more for SME’s such as mine which are IT dependent – rather than the manufacturing industry which Balmakeith seems more focused on.
Hopefully I’ve raised reservations about any new retail in the Sandown development not least because it creates a two-nucleus town, which seems dangerous.
However, there needs to be more consideration to transport if retail is going to be focused on the High Street and Balamkeith – Sandown as a suburb rather than “new village” – not least because of the extensive pressures a few hundred new houses is going to put on the existing A96 bottleneck, and limited town parking.
2c.
Thanks for your comments Brian and I totally agree with what you say about a two-nucleus town. The Sandown community have, for the last three years at least, been trying to tell our elected councillors and the Planning Department of our concerns regarding All proposed developments in general and Sandown in particular. One of the big issues has been the lack of infrastucture to support the Lochloy, Deveron, Cawdor, Whiteness, Tornagrain proposals spillage onto the A96 and the subsequent mayhem this would cause on our roads. No-one has done anything about collaboration between Cawdor and Deveron with regards to access and traffic problems, the two individual Community/Leisure/Heritage cenres, retail areas, linked cycle paths, water and waste problems, etc. (why cannot Cawdor and Deveron collaborate on access from the A96) All these concerns and more have been expressed at various S.C.C. meetings. One other big issue arising out of the Deveron Homes proposals is their blatent disregard to the local plan which originally stated 140 houses on the Sandown site and which mysteriously grew to 550 without once councillor speaking out against this. I have written several times to The Planning Dept outlining my concerns but the Nairn Elected Representatives, having put themselves in hock to pay for the new Community Centre, can only follow a path which allows them to repay the loan to the Highland Council which in turn, means supporting Deveron’s application. Joined up thinking vis a vis town planning does not seem within the grasp of this council or the Planning Dept. They are selling their souls and the future of this lovely, highland town for the jingle of ready cash from Developers. Given the poverty of ambition shown by this council for adopting long term, cohesive and well thought out plans for this town which would enhance living conditions, improve the environment,provide better social facilities, proper transport links and establish housing that is attractive, sustainable, and in keeping with the local architecure, plus the necessary infrastructure to support the above,- all of which would ultimately add to the attractiveness of Nairn,- and add to that the steadily strengthening grip of Highland Council on our elected members for Nairn, I feel, along with others, that a more cohesive approach by the Nairn Community is needed to better establish the determined views of the people in Nairn and make those views known to our elected representatives because they are certainly not listening as well as they should.
Absolutely right, and hopefully the recent momentum of the river and suburban council will be helpful in creating a single stronger voice – it does seem that in council matters Inverness has done a “divide and conquer” on Nairn.
However, if Deveron Homes wishes to push on a highly revised application that goes against the Local Plan, then this can work to our advantage – if it’s going to get automatically bounced to the Scottish Government, then we can create a lot of noise about this.
Highland Councillors may act with disdain regarding their electorate, but MPs + MSPs tend to be much more sensitive to political pressures, especially if this can be turned into a party political embarrassment for someone.
Deveron should take clear warning that if they will not revise their plans, then very real public pressure can be put on the entire future of the development.
The last thing Deveron should do at this time is underestimate the groundswell of aggrieved public opinion in Nairn regarding developments in general, and if Deveron wishes to test this, it could prove very damaging to their business interests indeed.
@ Nairnbairn
Le peuple, c’est nous!
Les médias, c’est nous aussi!
yes the folk of the town should have a say in what happens at sandown. we have too think about this all too often its talked about but nothing done. i was born and bred in nairn so have seen it change over the years. some times not for the better.
billy
my worry is number1 what is happening to our town centre so much talk of spreading our town this way and that and our town centre needs so much attentsionand number 2 is the word affordable housing so many people i no cant afford a house,my son is included in this he can not even afford a one bedroom flat in town the affordability is very serious and must be carefully concidered in any development.I believe when applying for a house now you have to make a choice of three locations this to me is a big problem as many people only want to stay in nairn and my last point i would like to make is it looks like people will be coming into deveron homes from all over and i just wonder do we really need all these houses when it puts so much pressure on roads doctors sewage works etc