Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Bus Station Flats go ahead - 12 for 7 against

Colin MacAulay proposed rejection backed by Michael Green. Liz proposed for seconded by Laurie. Motion passed.

5 comments:

Finnanhaddie said...

Having put up with that eyesore for over 30 years most locals will be glad with this outcome. But will the developers really move forward now and develop the site? No doubt NICE would have been able to come up with NICER plans for the site – but would we have to wait another 30 years when half of us will be pushing up daisies. I won’t believe anything’s happening anyway until the diggers move in. And if that does happen I suspect it will be because the developer has gained access to some funding from the government for social housing. The owner of this site should be ashamed of themselves for inflicting this eyesore on Nairn for so long.

James said...

lets hope they get further than the rosebank church flats - what ever happened to that?

APTSec said...

http://www.highland.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/A7C257B3-21F2-4EEA-A72E-3DE65665F893/0/PLS06312.pdf

Scottish Government grant funding has been secured which would allow the Council to invest in Nairn. However, a condition of funding is that development must be completed prior to 31 March 2015. Although there are a number of potential sites in and around Nairn many are constrained and unlikely to come
forward for development within this timeframe or are not located to best serve the need for smaller town centre housing.

The draft programme lodged with the Scottish Government sets out our investment plans for 2012/15. Included in this is an intention to develop 16 flats in Nairn Town
centre. Thus we support development of affordable units on this site, providing the potential for 16 additional affordable homes of a size and in a location which is confirmed by need and fits with overall strategy and the Council’s programme.”

Anonymous said...

It was excellent news that the flats will now go ahead. It means 16 small families or individuals will get a home at sensible rent, instead of paying £400-£600 huge private sector rents. We should appluad those Highland Councillors and Nairn River Community Council for having the guts to go for this development.

Finnanhaddie said...

So I guessed right: government cash has been the key behind this – and thank you APTsec for the info. In an ideal world it would have been NICE to see something artyfarty that could have drawn the public eye into the gem which Viewfield is.

But no-one could argue that housing for those in need is a good use of the site. Still angry it has taken so long for this to happen and the council, government are all as culpable as the developer for not reaching a resolution sooner. And yes – what about Rosebank next. Highland Regional Council bought that for a quid, punted it on when they realised they were going to have to spend money for it as an arts centre and it has been left to decay ever since. Councillors now need to focus on finding a solution and have talks with the owner of that building. Of course if they had any sense they would not have flogged it in the first place! There is so much crying out to be done in this town. The bus station is just one project of many crying out to be addressed and it has taken over 3 decades to find a solution.