"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

Cool response for Rosemary's suggestive letter

West Community Council chair Rosemary Young had written to River and Suburban CC calling for a working group or subcommittee to discuss planning matters. Her three page letter which outlines how West CC view certain recent difficulties over planning matters can be seen here.

This initiative received a very cool response from the River members however and this observer detects that perhaps the “cross-border” interventions from West which recently took a different view from River over the Bus Station and Braeval applications. Jimmy Ferguson and Brian Stewart were in the Community Centre last night (Tuesday) to support Rosemary’s letter and reply to any points raised by River members but they had a hard time of it.

River member Andrew Purkis said: “I’m not particularly in favour of this. I do think there is merit in it but we do have organised bodies of community councillors already. Where there are areas where there are developments which affect the town generally, I think those are important for the community councils to get together to discuss those issues.I don’t think it needs to set up another level of bureaucracy. I would trust our chairman, and I’m sure each community council would trust their chairman, if there was an issue which really affected the town as a whole, for those chairman to meet and see if there is any common ground and then come back to discuss and then come back to the committees.”

Jimmy Ferguson said in reply to that and other comments: The issue wasn’t so much about someone wanting to put an extension up in their back garden and that sort of stuff, that’s very local. There are some big issues around the town, like Sandown, like Nairn South, where it’s going to have a massive impact on the whole community. Individuals within each of the community councils have quite strong backgrounds or professional backgrounds and the idea behind this was just to have a get together with a few of those people to discuss what are the bigger issues around the town and try and form a consensus on what the Nairn community really feel about some of those issues.

Leslie Bolton supported Andrew’s point of view: “Why do we need another level, Mr Chairman, I agree with Andrew, we meet monthly, eleven times a year, we have four joint meetings, that’s fifteen meetings in the year and if there was some major issue that Highland Council said they were going to deal with the town centre as a whole, we could always call a special meeting to discuss that. On Nairn South we made our representations, Nairn West made different representations, on Braeval as Stephanie said, we had a view, it was criticised at the West meeting, it was criticised at the Suburban meeting. Now that’s not the way to go. We are entitled to have our opinion on anything that comes within our area. And if we say what we say then that’s it.”

Sheilea Mayer then spoke about the Lodgehill Clinic planning application and how the three Community Councils working in unison succeeding in getting an appropriate result for the residents in that area. At this point this observer spoke of how a sort of procedure has developed in the town where residents of one particular area that are faced with an inappropriate development know that they have to get support from other areas of the town and not only their own local community council. This observer believes that these campaigns when they come are best left to individuals concerned to start things off and go to the Community Councils.

Tommy Hogg perhaps summed up the current thinking of River CC when he said: “The common message just doesn’t work sometimes, what suits one community council area will not sort the other and that has been proved in the past and it’s still the same way.”

Stephanie Whittaker added to this: “I think the town will come together when it is under threat and I think it is quite obvious that everyone will work together, the other thing is there is disagreement. If you ask, I have been spending ages, wondering around town saying to people, “What do you think about the bus station?” “What do you think of the plans.” Wonderful, really great, dreadful, hate it. There is a dichotomy of opinion and there always will be. It may be that it is a difference of opinion between community councils but it may be that the people in the town are thinking different things it’s up to us to listen to what they are saying[…] People are wonderful and they will come together and I don’t think we need to push them too much outside the system that we have already."

Although there was a fairly negative reception towards Rosemary's proposal from River members they did agree to discuss it further and thought it would also be a matter for the joint community council meeting on the 31st of January.

Rosemary Young joins the Co-op boycotters

Above is Rosemary Young's contribution to the Facebook Campaign to boycott the Co-op until they clean up the Regal etc. (click to see a bigger image if you have trouble reading it) The Campaign seems to be gathering pace and numbers as folk get on their PC's and laptops after a long sunny day. Not everyone is of the same mind however, here's another comment:

"I cant believe how narrow minded you people are...sure go ahead and boycott the Co-op , but how will you feel when its staff are out of jobs ??? Probably wont bother any of you, with money to throw away."

Perhaps the executives at the Co-op should have thought a bit like that when they set out to hire a bunch of suits for the public inquiry to try and stop a decent supermarket worthy of the new millennium coming to Nairn. Didn't they realise that the Community would turn against them for that? The top men at the Co-op wanted to keep their monopoly control over Nairn.

This observer has effectively boycotted the Co-op for the big shop for many years now and has relied on mercy lifts to other towns for more choice. Sainsbury's will offer that choice without having to travel but for some the Co-op will still be the most convenient place to shop and nothing will change that - it might even be quieter for a while with smaller queues. We'll just have to wait and see how things go. It is a shame that peoples jobs may be affected but the ill-will in this community is to the gaffers that have left things as they are and not the individuals that work there who are part of our community. The Co-op can go a long way to making amends by simply cleaning up the mess that is the Regal and the old petrol station - then the community might be inclined to show them some support again. Come on Co-op high heid yins - are you Caring and Sharing or don't you give a toss for Nairn's appearance?

Why not pop over to Facebook and add your views?

Swimming Pool - Rosemary Young speaking on Tuesday night

Councillor Rosemary Young of the West CC, spoke to the meeting in the Courthouse of her fear that along with the swimming pool we would loose the other facilities on the Links run by the Leisure Centre staff:

A lot of the front, the Links, the Paddling Pool, the heart of Nairn that bring tourists here If you went down there a couple of weeks back when the sun was out there were people everywhere. Daytrippers enjoying it and looking forward to the paddling pool being open. If you rip that out of Nairn, the heart will go. Please listen to us. You can get money out of Highland Council. Just get rid of those layers that have accumulated over the last 20 years – rip these out and fix that budget.’

Applause followed Rosemary’s statement. Well said Rosemary, the Swimming Pool staff take care of a few other things that are essential for Nairn's role as a seaside town!