Traffic Warden Blues

The Gurn had heard that the traffic wardens were coming through from Inverness on regular blitzes and going home having more than raised enough cash for their days wages every time. The Gurn has heard some complaints but also praise for the wardens for sorting out selfish motorists that take advantage of those more liberal moments when there are no wardens around and making the pavements a danger area for pedestrians by their illegal parking. See picture below. Brian from MyNairn has strong views on the matter however and thinks the wardens are going too far : Traffic Wardens making town centre No Go area?

Demolition - Liz doesn't want the old Community Centre site sold

More details of what is going on with the old Community Centre have come out today with a picture and small article in the Press and Journal. We reported yesterday that the Highland Council had passed permission for demolition. Today the P&J reports that they are looking for a contractor as cash has become available after delays with other projects. The Gurn beleives this cash is from a special Scottish Government town centre fund as Oor Sandy was speaking about the like last year.

Now what will happen to the site? Liz is quoted in the paper: " I would like to see it left as additional parking for the town centre. I don't think it should be sold."

That might be the best thing because getting a parking place in the town centre can be very difficult at certain times of the week. What do Gurnites think? Keep the site on the books or sell it for development?

Fair parking at Fairways?

Some West End residents have been critical of the volume of traffic passing their homes of late due to the route being used as a 'rat run'. One gurn regular has found that some residents of Fairways have started parking on the pavement on a regular basis meaning folk with prams and wheel chairs are forced onto the road. Not a good state of affairs especially if there is more traffic to contend with as has been suggested.

"Why not park the cars in the road where they belong, they would act as a traffic calming measure?" Suggests our correspondent.

Parking enforcement

As seen on the brae yesterday by Iain. Watch where you park Gurnites, the free-for-all is over now.

Traffic warden now active in Nairn

Example of extreme bad parking from around this time last year which would now get you a ticket from Nairn's seasonal traffic warden.

At tonight's (Tuesday's) meeting of Nairn Suburban Community Council at Nairn Academy Sgt Olga Hansen gave her police report and stated that a seasonal traffic warden was now working in Nairn. Our traffic warden will be working until the end of September and she is full time.
Cllr Graham Marsden highlighted the softly-softly approach from the former warden Sandy Ford and the way that he worked by consensus rather than threat.
Olga told him that the warden would have a job to do and if the police were getting complaints they would have to take action. She added, however, that there would be a period of grace where advice and warnings would be given until folk become aware that there is a traffic warden back in the town.
Over on Green Dad's blog you can see an example of one of the warning notices that have already been issued.

More parking needed - Phillip Konzack

More from Wednesday night and the thoughts of town centre resident Phillip Konzack:

'First, yes, the idea of doing something is, we need to do something and soon, but I think putting building onto there is not the idea. What we need is more car parking space, you say that we want access to the town centre and we have limited car parking space for tourists coming in, residents, people who want to shop in Nairn. That is limited to no car parking space most of the time.'

Phillip is certainly right, parking is quite an issue in Nairn and at times it is almost impossible to find a space in the town Centre, he continued:

'Having more car parking space would open up maybe more retail, more people going to our shops. Certainly we’ve not been fighting trying to get car parking space especially for residents in the area who find it difficult to park their cars especially at busy peak times of the day. You could do, building car parks is actually a cheaper option than building, you could also have landscaping at the edge of the road with trees, bushes making it nice and attractive at the side of the road, that way you could try and alleviate the sort of backside of the town centre. '

Will Streetscape 2 solve this Nairn High Street Hazard

Yesterday afternoon this lorry had a delivery to make but no where to park without blocking the traffic coming behind. The answer was to go on the pavement. It is not unusual to see vehicles mounting the pavement on the brae but it does happen on the High Street proper too, more generally just up from the brae as delivery drives seek somewhere to stop, but nowhere is really totally safe from this practice. Here's an example of just how dangerous this behaviour is. Hopefully Streetscape 2 will bring solutions?

Inconsiderate parking

We've had a gurn in accompanied by a picture. The scene above is an image taken of the disabled parking bays behind the Courthouse. The problem here is that the car in the picture had not been reversed enough thus forcing pedestrians to have to tramp through an icy surface rather than the gritted path that the car was parked on top of. Please consider pedestrians when parking. We've heard too of similar silly parking round at Somerfield/Co-op too.

The complainant is in forgiving mood however and told the Gurn: 'This Gurnite would like to wish all readers a happy New Year, especially the owner of this car.'