Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Sandown, Common Good Fund, Planning transparency in Nairn – A boring title, but a document you must read if you care!

Gurnites, the failure of the planning application for 550 homes on the Sandown Lands has raised more questions than it answers but rest assured there are those in the town and beyond who will not let the matter rest there. This is all about what kind of a town we want to live in and how we allow Nairn to grow in a way that enables it to keep its own identity; about how we decide what we want and not how others tell us what we need. This is all about Nairn’s future. Be a part of the decision making. Get informed! Get involved! Let the community decide!

One of the groups that spoke at the planning hearing was the Nairn Residents’ Concern Group. They state: ‘At the Hearing, NRCG were given 4 minutes to cover the concerns of approximately 50 people and also respond to the 19 page report from the Planning Department which they were only able to access 4 days before the hearing.’ In an effort to redress the balance they have written a letter to the town’s four councillors and all members of the area planning committee plus the area’s MSPs and journalists and bloggers. Fellow Gurnites, they have some serious issues they want discussed. We’ll see how much actually surfaces in the local and regional or even Scottish media but, in the meantime, remember that in this age of the e-Society we are all the media too. Read this very important letter for yourself, e-mail the link to your friends, print it off and give it to those that don’t have a PC. There is not a monopoly on information anymore, you can be as informed as any MSP, any Councillor, you can be an expert too – in fact, when it comes to what you want to see happen to your community then, as a member of that community, you already are an expert. Your voice should be as important as any councillor, any developer, any PR man! Make it so!

You can read the NRCG letter here on the Nairnmatters.com site and their submission to the planning hearing is here too. If you feel like commenting on the issue, then perhaps that too is better done over at nairnmatters.com. Good reading fellow Gurnites.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's demanding reading but I'm glad to see there are still some people left in Nairn who don't welcome the developers steam roller with open arms.

I cannot see how any development involving hundreds of houses is going to benefit Nairn?

What positive additions did we see to Nairn from Achareidh, or the current Lochloy developments, answer none, just more people drawing on what resources we have

To make it worse we are now being held hostage to fortune as we owe money on the new community centre which was leant to us on the promise of the sale of Sandown lands

I'm old fashioned enough not to spend money I haven't got, and maybe we wouldn't be in the global financial mess we are in if more people held that attitude

I fully expect some sort of arm twist to be put on the council from the developers at Sandown and we will see Nairn sold down the river, no doubt some lame excuse will be put forward by the council