However, I think there are various high-speed solutions for SME’s that may yet be viable – and even normal speed can still work well for internet-based service providers such as webhosts, web designers, and developers, where speed isn’t a mission critical feature of their services.

There are a number of datacentres across the UK, and each tends to see a cottage industry of SME’s move in, based on offering hosting/design/development.

My expectation would be that such a cottage industry would have plenty of potential around here.

Additionally, buildings such as the old community centre appear to be pretty close to Nairn’s telephone exchange, and the installation of a fibre connection from that building to the exchange could present a real opportunity for turning the community centre into a modern business centre for IT-based services.

There are also services such as bonded ADSL and leased line services which may potentially offer faster dedicated broadband connections for those businesses that need them – they are certainly used in normal copper wire systems down south. No idea how feasible they would be here, but is something I’m already trying to find out about.

Either way, I think there is room for IT potential around the Moray Firth region – I’m easily given the impression that development so far has been limited not because of infrastructure issues, as much as low population density and the small local market resulting in this being a low priority.

2c.

One really good part of the Sandown application by Deveron was the business park – an ideal opportunity to expand Nairn’s employment prospects.

The hope is that any resubmission would continue this line of thinking.

it’s official, Nairn is deemed ‘NOT AFFORDABLE’..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8134053.stm

The town needs economic activity to attract and retain people who will then live and work locally.

But it is a delusion to believe (as the developers try to argue) that building lots of (affordable) houses will somehow magically create jobs and keep people in the town. Construction itself is short-term work. Building houses without the prospect of longer-term local jobs will turn Nairn either into soul-less commuterland for Inverness (just look westwards to see what I mean), or into a collection of sink-estates for those who might otherwise be homeless as well as jobless.

Nairn has to get the economic planning right and the employment possibilities sorted before acquiescing in major programmes of housebuilding. Some approaches offer better possibilities than others. Traditional ideas aren’t appropriate:

- manufacturing industry? There will be no new Ardesier-type industrial growth on the back of a second oil boom (and windfarms don’t create jobs). We have Norbord along the road. But does anyone seriously want or expect lots more similar industrial factories and works around Nairn?

- business services and parks? Call-centres and commercial infrastructure services have brought jobs to the Highlands. But such developments are vulnerable, to competition from cheaper rivals in India and as we see currently, to downturns in the world economy.

Our planners and developers have to be more imaginative. A sustainable local economy offering reliable employment has to build on local assets. What does this mean? Finding ways of creating jobs based on what we have and value. For example…

We have a rich agricultural hinterland: we should be supporting farmers’ markets, and entrepreneurs like the Garlicky company, organic food growers and venison-sellers.

We have a tremendous natural environment: the council should be encouraging businesses and supporting projects which focus on recreation, outdoor activities, and tourism. Tourism is already one of the major sources of employment and revenue in Scotland. But it is capable of much more growth if prudently planned and managed sustainably – and Nairn has great potential for jobs in tourism and related services if only our planners would support efforts to deliver it.

We have fantastic climate and quality-of-life. The authorities should be facilitating small and medium businesses which (given the right facilities) can work from home or studio: web designers, writers, architects, internet-businesses, and anyone who values a “work-life balance”. To generate and retain jobs of this kind doesn’t need acres of tarmac-ed business park, or hundreds of cheap houses. But it does need quality services, investment in better communications, upgraded road rail and air access, adequate health and education services, a good range of retail options (Sainsburys and High street stores as well as the Tesco leviathan), decent and extensive high-speed broadband, and similar 21st century infrastructure.

If the facilities are there, the investors and entrepreneurs will create jobs; and once the jobs are there, builders can, and will, respond to the demand for housing. But it has to be that way round.

So yes, Nairnac, we agree on the need to make Nairn – and indeed other parts of the region – vibrant, sustainable and diverse communities. It’s just that we disagree on how to achieve this. We won’t achieve it, and certainly should not start the process, just by building lots more cheap housing.

Rosebank school roll certainly seems to be contracting, and as a result they have to reduce teacher numbers, which seems to mean that although there is a smaller roll, class sizes are increasing !

What I’d like to quantify is how many people are actually able to live and work in Nairn and maintain a decent standard of family life, and own a reasonably sized family home, with a little bit of space. In other words, a ‘sustainable’ community. Not just in the sense of re-cycling our used copies of the guardian, but in the sense of families having a future here.

To my simple way of thinking, it’s these people who the planners should be working on behalf of, forcing developers to build decent family homes which are genuinely ‘affordable’. Better still, have the council build them themselves. It was quite the rage at one time I believe, and places like Shanghai actually consists of decent sized houses with proper front and back gardens, and a great sense of community. That’s what we need, as well as the slightly cooky places like the Firhall community without children.

Perhaps that’s because many working families don’t have the luxury of free time across the hours of their working week? And students are in college?

“We have a growing town with falling school roll’s”

Do we really, though? Isn’t it the case that Rosebank used to be the secondary school, and is now a primary school precisely because of the need to accommodate increasing numbers of children?

On top of that, I note on the Kylauren site along Lochloy Road, there is land set aside in the building plans for another school. Something projected as needed?