Bill Young gathers support for Common Good proposals from River CC

West Councillor Bill Young spoke to the River CC at the meeting in the Community Centre las night (Tuesday). He reiterated the argument he presented to his West colleagues last week, which is to get the Common Good fund under local control. See here and here for further details. He said:

“This is not an attack on the Councillors, they have a very difficult job to do, but trying to square off the books for an area the size of Belgium and trying to deal with the Common Good Fund, the two are not necessarily compatible. I can see no reason why we couldn’t get it back under the local control of Nairn.”

Later as this subject was being debated Liz said: “ I was relaxed about how the Common Good was being managed but now you’ve got a Council that is no longer run by the members it is a political council and the point that I’m trying to make here is that there’s everybody chasing budgets and it’s not going to be people aligned to areas so much. It’s going to be people aligned to political groups. I’m a political councillor but I’m just concerned that will there be the protection of the areas within the political structures[…]We’ve always been comfortable that all councillors looked after their own areas but now it is a different ball game.”

Graham Marsden said he thought Bill was right and there was an opportunity to look again and see if there are other options.

The River Councillors seemed very supportive of Billy Young’s presentation and Tommy Hogg said he wanted the matter raised at the joint Community Council meeting that will be hosted on the 31^st in the Academy by Suburban CC.
This observer wonders if Oor Graham will now also call for no sale of any Sandown land until the Common Good is back in Nairn control? Or will it simply be platitudes all the way to the ballot box?

Common Good Fund - The way we go about getting it back under Nairn control?

Here's more from Billy Young's comments at the West CC meeting last week. Previous article here.

"Within the three Community Councils you have got an elected body which represents the population of Nairn who are the beneficiaries of the Common Good Fund. I would have thought it shouldn't be beyond our wit to get some representitives, a small sub-committee, to bury whatever differences we may have on anything else, on how we want to spend the money or whether we want wetlands, or whatever, to get some strategy between us, which we can stand up to the Council: well thank you very much for your management, it's rubbish, we want it back and we've got somebody which is capable of receiving it which is the elected representitives from the Community Councils."

Sounds a very good strategy to this observer. The Gurn understands that since last week's meeting the West contacted River Community Council with a view to asking if Bill could speak to the River meeting this evening in the Community Centre at 7.30 p.m.

Altonburn Road "Access only"

This could be the new look on Altonburn Road and at other entry points to the rat-run that many drivers use to avoid the traffic lights on the A96. The subject of drivers avoiding the jams and driving at inappropriate speeds has surfaced at West CC meetings before but last night a practical solution was suggested

The proposal by Bill Young at the West CC received unanimous backing from his councillor colleagues. The idea is to place mandatory "access only" signs at the junction of Altonburn Road and Pig Street. Other signs would be placed on the Seafield Street brae and just past the Seabank Gardens/Young Street junctions on Manse Rd, Seabank Rd and Albert Street.

The West are to ask the Highland Council to look into putting up these signs that would prohibit any vehichles that were simply using this area as a detour. The Westies are also going to write formally to River and Suburban CCs seeking their support. Jimmy Ferguson wondered if such signs would be enforceable but Bill said anything with a red circle would be mandatory. Seonaid Armstrong was also concerned about wildlife she said:

"On the Altonburn Road I've seen a couple of red squirrels crossing from the Newton which also ties in with all of this because they cross between the Newton Hotel and the pines on the Golf Course."

A member of the public then said that she had seen a dead red squirrel outside marine appartments. Seonaid then continued:

"If Joe Telfer can get signs up for his ducks and swans and all the rest of it, I think a red squirrel is also protected."

Dick Youngson, also present on the behalf of Suburban CC, told the meeting of how a meeting with an official of Highland Council in an attempt to get a "pedestrians on road" sign on Sandown Farm Lane had gone. "They are quite amenable but nothing has happened," he said.

UPDATE: New poll in sidebar - Do you support the proposals?