Highland Council credit card spending revealed
The Telegraph launches a crusade against council spending, after requesting details of credit card payments over £500 from each council: An investigation by The Daily Telegraph has uncovered details of apparently questionable spending decisions by councillors and local government officials, with more than £2 million spent on travel over the last three years, including flights [...]
No spaceport for Moray
After the Gurn posted about the farewell march in Forres over RAF Kinloss, I thought I’d check to see how the spaceport idea was coming along. The original idea was that RAF Lossiemouth could become a spaceport for Virgin Atlantic, on the grounds that the Virgin project needed a particularly long and hard to find [...]
New fortnightly rubbish collection
Responsible recycling drive, or flytippers charter? From July 4th, normal household rubbish collection will be reduced from weekly to fortnightly, while new big blue wheelie bins will be provided for paper, plastic, tins and cans. Still no glass recycling in the Highlands I see. While no doubt it will force some people to push more [...]
Nairn swans hatch nine cygnets
Joe reports that the swans have successfully hatched 8 little cygnets this year, and that they’ve just taken their first swim in the river (and later reported the figure as 9). Been passing by there recently and suspected there were eggs being warmed in the nest, so good to see events turn out well so [...]
SPP news websites get overhaul
The Inverness Courier along with other SPP news websites have had an overhaul, making them look a lot more modern and user-friendly. No doubt the changes have come at a time when online publishing is still suffering from the recession, forcing changes across the industry. I suspect the revamp is part of the SPP Group’s [...]
Beautiful Easter weather
It’s been a great couple of weeks for the weather, with the sun shining throughout the Easter break. While there were a few cool days, the temperature managed to reach towards 20 C on some days. While a gentle rain fell much of yesterday to break things up, today is punctuated with sunny spells and [...]
SNP landslide in Scotland
It’s turning into a landslide for the SNP in Scotland, with the party looking like it’ll be able to form a majority government in Holyrood. Our own Fergus Ewing took a 51.5% majority for the Constituency of Inverness & Nairn, with a swing of over 10% – something the Gurn predicted with it’s own polls. [...]
Nairn: the new Highland Capital
The very funny satirical blog, Inversnecky, recently ran a piece how Sainsbury’s development at Nairn could steal the crown of “Highland Capital” from Inverness: Nairn now better than Inverness: Sainsbury threatens “Highland Capital” tag It could be that the main interchange between the Highland lines to Perth and Aberdeen will move to Nairn, that Eden [...]
Fergus Ewing to take up Swan Man’s case?
Joe Telfer was astonished when the Sheriff threw out the assault charge, brought after he was pushed into the river last year. The Crown Office regards the sheriff as incompetent in the case – but says there’s nothing they can do about it. Now Fergus Ewing has promised to chase this up. We have a [...]
Nairn’s traffic lights farce
Trying to travel out of Nairn has become a potential nightmare recently with five new sets of traffic lights being built – we’ve only just started to get back to normal after months of roadworks around Tradespark. The Gurn has been featuring this story heavily, along with a number of detailed posts – the most [...]