Sunday, February 15, 2009

River Community Council round-up

Here’s a Gurn report, slightly late folks but I think you will appreciate that MacLean Court activities have been taking up the Gurnmeister’s time this week.

The River CC meeting was attended by all the regular community councillors and also Convenor Sanday Park, Provost Liz and Sgt Olga Hansan from the Nairn Police station. She gave a run-down on the considerable amount of ongoing activities that the force are engaging in to protect our community and gave us the latest on how the move was going. There are no cells in Nairn at the moment given the move to the Courthouse Lane premises, looks like miscreants will have to find their own way back from Inverness in the morning from now on.

Murd asked Liz if she’d heard anything from the Access Panel with regards to a decision on funding for disabled access to the Firhall Bridge. It seems the Access Panel is still deciding priority. Let’s hope Murd’s project wins support, it would make such a difference to a lot of people if they could enjoy both sides of the river on a round trip instead of having to return and go back the same way

And then some talk of what will happen to the Corsee building, local Highland Council members will be consulted it seems. The meeting was given a reminder that the Balmakeith planning inquiry had been moved to the 16th of June.
There was a gurn or two, supported by Sandy, about the level of paperwork the community councils have to deal with and how the inclusion of licensing applications would add to the burden facing these volunteer groups. The Chair Jean Tolmie did urge the Convenor that it would be helpful to be given the Highland Council Agenda however, something that she hasn’t been getting for a while. Sandy agreed that that would be useful.

There was debate, as usual, of the Somerfield/Co-op town centre plan, ongoing epic, saga, drama, etc, etc. Sandy Park told the meeting that it was the most frustrating issue he had faced for 10 years. Liz too told off her dissatisfaction with the issue. There is also the regular issue of Trunk Roads Department permission raising its ugly head every time this issue is debated. Someone should really get their finger out in that department because it would stop a supermarket rebuild even if anyone wanted to do it.

Speaking of regular chestnuts what would a River CC meeting be without a mention of the Bailey Bridge. Sandy Park, perhaps bravely, asked the council if they thought that perhaps they might receive opposition to allowing traffic to use the bridge once more if money could be found for repairs. He suggested that some people seem to be very happy with the pedestrian environment down there. The Gurnmeister has to admit it is nice not to have to worry about traffic when crossing the road on the way to the beach down there on the caravan site side of the river. The discussion then moved on to potential funding sources.

There were a few other things that the Gurn hasn’t got the time to include folks so head along to the newsagent’s on Tuesday and treat yourself to the usual 40p analogue device to find out more.
Gurnites get involved: go to the MacLean Court campaign tool kit page.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if anyone else has noticed...

Both Maclean Court, on which Provost Liz and the Gurn have done such a superb campaigning job, and Corsee, whose closure - mentioned above - was I think a similar cause celebre two or three years ago, happen to be in the very part of Nairn (Nairn West) that at present has no Community Council.

There's a moral in this, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

Why stop at a by-pass. Let's dual the Baillie Bridge!