Time for Nairn to get active on local issues
It’s time to get proactive and ensure that our elected representative actually start to represent us.
1. McLean Court day-centre
The Highland Council wants to save £35,000 a year by closing the McLean Court day centre:
Blind Mary, 89, says life will be bleak without Nairn day-centre
A blind 89-year-old widow is heartbroken that the day-centre which has become her social lifeline is being shut down as part of budget cuts by Highland Council.
Forres-born Mary Lewis, a former nurse, said yesterday that she and others using the McLean Court facility in Nairn’s Albert Street were shocked by the council’s decision.
She was intrigued to know how those making the decision would feel if their parents faced the same plight.
Mrs Lewis said attending the centre a few times a week over the past two years had made her feel “like one of the community”, and that there was no comparable alternative local venue, despite a council claim that there is. She said: “There is good company and it keeps your brain active.
“I’ll just be stuck here at home for days now, with nobody. It’s as simple as that. And others will be in the same position. A whole lot of us are upset.
“I would like to ask the councillors if they’ had old parents with nowhere to go, how would they feel about it?”
The Gurn already put up a petition online to print – you can you can download it here.
2. Sandown development
The original plan for a development at Sandown was not a problem – around 130 properties according to the Local Plan, with the Highland Council raising the brief for the development to a possible 230 properties.
However, the scale of Deveron’s 550 property development, which includes 3 and 4 storey buildings, means the local infrastructure cannot support the scale being proposed.
At the very least, there has been no study on the impact to local transport, and the influx of cars expected from a development of this scale can only lead to serious problems on what is already a bottleneck on the A96 through Nairn. We already enjoy long tailbacks through Nairn, especially on a Friday afternoon – does it make sense for this to happen everyday?
Additionally, the development itself is not in keeping with the character of the area – and appears driven by a desire for Deveron to increase profits by building with with as high a housing density as possible.
Deveron’s PR company, Invicta, already boasts a strategy of determining and targeting decision makers in planning, and are already wining and dining these people within the Highland Council to try and smooth the passage of the plans. They are shutting out anyone else from making comments or raising intelligent questions in the marketing of this business operation.
In other words, if no one says anything, Deveron and Invicta will steam roll the developments through the planning process and leave Nairn with its very own “carbuncle” – and the associated problems this will cause for existing residents.
While Deveron are happy to proclaim this is a “£100 million development”, what they are not saying is whether this figure represents the cost of the project – or the estimated revenues from the project. Cynically, it would be easy to presume the latter.
The Gurn publishing Jon Harte’s own letter of protest, and invites others to use it as a template:
Highland Council,
Planning and Development Services,
Barron House,
88 High Street,
NAIRN IV12 4AU[date]
Dear Sirs,
Proposed Development at Sandown, Nairn Ref: 07/00188/OUTNAI refer to the notification dated 26 January 2009 received by me in connection with the above development.
I wish to express strong objections to this proposed development for the following reasons –While the Deveron re-submission purports to address many of the concerns of local residents it still fails emphatically as regards the density of housing nor does it address the traffic problems that a site of this size will consequently create. It fails to recognise that the Local Plan was designed to accept 130 houses into the area and that the Highland Council Development brief called for a maximum of 230.
The only way that Deveron can conceivably believe that 550 dwellings will pass planning consent is because Highland Council Officials have intimated and given an implicit but “unwritten consent” that 550 houses will be passed, perhaps with a cursory reduction, on approval, just to ameliorate “local concerns”.
The so called Deveron consultation process has been derisory in the extreme. Meetings at which the stakeholder local public were deliberately excluded, with only a few permitted to enter, due to the force of numbers. To add insult to injury the stakeholder local public were only admitted as “observers” and were not allowed to “comment”. What are Deveron afraid of; difficult questions that they are not prepared to answer?
It is interesting that Deveron should have recently engaged a PR agent, whose apparent underhand activities in Edinburgh resulted in the resignation of a Councillor!! (Mountgrange`s Spin Doctors Canongate Community Forum) . Is it significant that Deveron are on the 5 Feb 09 holding a further meeting with interested parties but which again apparently excludes the stakeholder local public.
I strongly reiterate my objections to this planning application and look to our Councillors to seek the views of the people of Nairn, whom they represent, and act in the people’s interest rather than just seeking to appease targets for affordable housing.
Yours faithfully
[your name]
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we must stop this. yet something else lost from nairn come on folk stand up and be counted have your say. what a way too treat old folk this is not on.