Common Good “Death by Powerpoint?” meeting offered to CCs after an out of the blue e-mail.

At the Suburban Community Council meeting last night the latest goings on in the long running Common Good Fund stushie were made public. John Hart told the meeting:

“The original start point was a the Charrette opening, Jim MacKinnon the Chief Planner (Scottish Government), did point up with William Gilfillan that we would have a meeting between the Community Councils, ward Councillors and himself(WG) to discuss the Common Good and he asked us for an agenda which we submitted and agreed amongst ourselves, which suggested that the Common Good should be run by the community councils so there is a separation between the decision making and the managing. That agenda was rejected with the suggestion that the meeting would be a waste of time.”

John that said that an attempt was made to hold a meeting anyway with the four councillors. He continued: “On Monday I still hadn’t heard anything so I sent an e-mail to Mr MacKinnon saying we still hadn’t got a meeting and that matters relating to the Common Good as they are managed and as it’s been seen by people to be poorly managed we hadn’t moved further forward, having had the 1st March meeting effectively cancelled and out of the blue a few hours later after my e-mail an e-mail came from Louise Clark saying there was a meeting on the 5^th of March of all the community councillors – that’s all 30 of us in the Courthouse at 7.p.m on the 5^th at which they are going to do a presentation on what they have or haven’t done with the common good and we’ll see what that brings."

Brian Stewart expressed that the forthcoming meeting might be a “Death by Powerpoint” event and it should not be the Highland Council lecturing the community but rather them listening to the community.

There was then some considerable discussion on matters which serious gurnite students of common good affairs will be au fait with. It did emerge that there had been some confusion between the three CCs over the formation of the agenda but Tommy Hogg indicated that he was generally happy with the final result. There was talk of whether a meeting should go ahead before the new Highland Council is formed after the 3^rd of May elections given that faces and policy may well change. Alistair Noble was forthright in the view that all 3 CCs should be present in the best interests in Nairn given the dangers of what he perceives as divide and rule mechanisms and people playing games. He was adamant that there was a need to “focus on looking forward.” Tommy Hogg agreed and he more or less summed up the feeling of the meeting when he stated: “I think we should go for it, holding off would be a mistake to me.”

"The old Sandown lags gobbing off"

There was discussion at the joint CC meeting tonight in the Academy about the ongoing Sandown Charrette. Here are a few brief extracts from what was said.

Dick Youngson urged everyone to attend over the next two days if they can. Dick was very happy with the Charrette so far and outlined the work down so far today in the Courthouse.

There was a bit of hot debate about the publicity for the Charrette with Brian Stewart critical here. Brian had other concerns, mainly about the Cawdor proposal being way ahead of Sandown - “ The Delnies tail will wag the Sandown dog” was one phrase he used to outline his concerns about what might happen in the future. Rosemary Young said that she’d heard that nobody knew that it was on and that it was the usual suspects that were there. She thought that was a really bad thing and if they didn’t get the publicity right, they need to run it again and they need to put it in the evening so people who are working can get there. Oor Sandy said that the Community Councils had been informed two to three weeks ago and the publicity in the Nairnshire last week wasn’t as good as he would have expected. John Dolan replied that the press release had been too late for the Nairnshire.

John Mackie, with reference to previous experience said: “You could put posters all over the town, all over wherever you want and you still wouldn’t get a big turnout.

Colin MacAulay (Liz’s SNP running mate for the May elections said however; “It was a good day, it was an open and transparent process. People are genuinely cynical from previous experience about the exercise but I don’t think the facilitators are of that ilk at all. I think it is a very special opportunity to influence a very special piece of land.”

John Hart expressed his concern that the predominance of people there were the old Sandown lags gobbing off. “So we’ve got to encourage other people to go in and make their number and have a look at it,” he said.

Graham Vine said that he didn’t even know that the charrette was on today until he rang to speak to Dick Youngson about something totally different and his Dick’s wife said “oh he’s down at the charrette.”

Tommy said that he was totally happy and he’d been well aware of the charrette but did mention that people were working whilst the event was taking place

Simon Noble thought more could have been done earlier to communicate the message to more people.

You can see the schedule for the charrette here. This observer popped in a couple of times today and enjoyed a coffee and biscuit between two sessions. Why not pop down to the Courthouse and give it a try? If you find it’s not for you then you can always slip away quietly. People seem to be coming and going all the time. It’s your town and your taxes that will be paying for the tea and coffee anyway at the end of the day. Give it a go if in town over the next two days

Planning objection John Hart wants you to plaigairise him

Just copy this letter and submit it to the planning department signed by you with your name and address at the top and you will make John Hart a happy man.

Highland Council,
Planning and Development Services,
Barron House,
88 High Street,
NAIRN IV12 4AU

[date]

Dear Sirs,

Proposed Development at Sandown, Nairn Ref: 07/00188/OUTNA
I refer to the notification dated 26 January 2009 received by me in connection with the above development.I wish to express strong objections to this proposed development for the following reasons –
While the Deveron re-submission purports to address many of the concerns of local residents it still fails emphatically as regards the density of housing nor does it address the traffic problems that a site of this size will consequently create. It fails to recognise that the Local Plan was designed to accept 130 houses into the area and that the Highland Council Development brief called for a maximum of 230.
The only way that Deveron can conceivably believe that 550 dwellings will pass planning consent is because Highland Council Officials have intimated and given an implicit but “unwritten consent” that 550 houses will be passed, perhaps with a cursory reduction, on approval, just to ameliorate “local concerns”.
The so called Deveron consultation process has been derisory in the extreme. Meetings at which the stakeholder local public were deliberately excluded, with only a few permitted to enter, due to the force of numbers. To add insult to injury the stakeholder local public were only admitted as “observers” and were not allowed to “comment”. What are Deveron afraid of; difficult questions that they are not prepared to answer?
It is interesting that Deveron should have recently engaged a PR agent, whose apparent underhand activities in Edinburgh resulted in the resignation of a Councillor!! (Mountgrange`s Spin Doctors Canongate Community Forum) . Is it significant that Deveron are on the 5 Feb 09 holding a further meeting with interested parties but which again apparently excludes the stakeholder local public.
I strongly reiterate my objections to this planning application and look to our Councillors to seek the views of the people of Nairn, whom they represent, and act in the people’s interest rather than just seeking to appease targets for affordable housing.

Yours faithfully

[your name]