“I find that unacceptable that the town is going to have something imposed upon it!”

The title of this post is a quote from Sheena Baker earlier this evening at the West Community Council meeting.

A rough ride for the representative of Upland Developments “up west” this evening at the Community Centre for the last meeting of the Council before they throw themselves to the mercy of the electorate who will pick any 8 from 11 candidates on the coupon. Mr Johnston outlined potential changes he was able to consider given the constraints placed upon him by the developer and other factors such as the number of storeys that he was not able to change. He also indicated that the developer would not oppose an extension of time for the community to consider the application and also indicated that revised plans would be submitted. A photo-montage showing the building in relation to the surrounding landscape should also be shortly available.

Brian Stewart gave Mr Gary Johnston a forensic questioning on the local plan and whether the application for 12 flats and a supermarket fitted into that. It has to said that Mr Johnston performed very well in the witness box however and gave as good as he got on the vexed issue of the local plan. Gurnites would surely appreciate a few more notes on that exchange and we will hopefully put more up when time permits. There were some other wee complaints but it was Sheena Baker that made the most forthright attack on the proposal however, she told the meeting:

"I’m absolutely delighted to hear that Mr Cameron has suddenly woken up to the fact that we have a blot on the landscape here and is going to do something about it. I would actually echo the words earlier by Brian. Why is there such a rush? We want something to happen but whether it happens in three months or six months or a year, what we want is for it to be right when it is done and this is not right.”

West CC also debated NICE, South Nairn, the town centre, sewage problems in Nairn and a few other items. A lot of interesting material was aired tonight and hopefully we will get round to it over the next few days.

Sandown Lands interest charges - Sheena Baker speaks out

This in from Sheena who has been keeping a close eye on Sandown matters for some time:

'Did I not ask at a Nairnshire Partnership meeting a several months back several searching questions relating to the Nairn Common Good Land and whether interest was being charged, if so at what rate etc. I said when I asked the list of questions that I was not expecting answers there and then but it was agreed that Wm Gilfillan would take the questions away and research and answer them at the next meeting. This he did and we were assured at the next meeting that interest was not being charged but that it might change in the future. Nothing, I repeat nothing was said about there being any likelihood of it being charged retrospectively.

I was 100% + right to ask the questions and to get the answers. This was noted by yourself on the gurn and also by the Nairnshire Telegraph. It may have been as far back as last August, I do not have the relevant file to hand to check back copies of the minutes of the Partnership meeting.

The question arises once more about the Trustees who make decisions re Common Good Assets and as I said at that time we need people as trustees other than Councilors who are 100% independent and who would challenge such decisions!

I have no problem with interest being charged now that the sale of the Sandown land is out of the question but it should be from yesterday at 1% and not retrospectively.

Comments re the mal administration of the land used by the farmer are more or less correct and again I think it is a “cheek” for the Councilors to conveniently forget that aspect or “sweep it under the carpet”.

The two major players who will have clear memories of the farmers land saga are Bill Young and Frank Allen. Frank was, at the time, the area ward manager and Bill Young took a major interest in the various legal aspects of the case on behalf of himself and the “concerned community”.
Memories fade but this needs revisiting and, in my humble view, the retrospective interest charge needs challenging.

Sheena Baker'

Sheena Baker's questions from Last Night's Nairnshire Partnership meeting

The Gurn has stated before that in our opinion Sheena is one of the best councillors we never had, if by magic we were to be tomorrow allowed 5 councillors instead of 4 then she should be press-ganged immediately. Hopefully folk of her calibre may show an interest of serving on the future Royal Burgh Of Nairn Community Council once we eventually have that organisation established

Sheena returned to her mission of raising awareness of loans and other expenses incurred against the Common Good Fund last night. Her task is made a lot easier now as the Deveron Homes plan for Sandown is no longer a 'live' application and councillors and officials are at more liberty to discuss the issue. The loan from Highland Council to pay for the Community Centre was over £2, 000,000 and then there is the issue of the payment to the farmer etc to free Sandown for development, that is around £700,000. It did emerge that no interest is being charged by the council for this loan at the present but it was admitted that this might not be the case in the future.

Here are the questions she asked and she did preface them with the statement that she wasn't expecting immediate answers. It was instructive to note that William Gilfinnan did state that the Council were seeking legal advice on some of them already. Now on to Sheena's questions. Please note that if you wish to make comments please try and be constructive on this issue rather than get into the blame game. There will probably be enough time for that when, as it seems highly likely, the Sandown issue goes to a public inquiry and another bonanza for the lawyers begins.

' New points

With the application now no longer “a live local planning application” for our 4 Councillors as it has been passed to the Reporter and ultimately the Scottish Exec, are there likely to be costs from the process of the appeal being set against the loan/ Common good Fund/asset?

If the appeal by Deveron fails is there anything in the contract that states they would get some form of compensation/ golden goodbye presumably to go towards costs incurred by them from the onset of the application. I understand there may be. Can this be thoroughly checked and as well as checking it ascertain who would actually be liable to pay it – THC or the Common Good Fund?

The original contract seems to have been for 300 + houses, as Deveron increased that to 500+ and if the appeal fails was the original contract not then broken by Deveron when their planning application greatly exceeded the agreed number of homes? If the answer to that is yes then presumably there would be no right to compensation.

All these questions arise as the contract for the sale of a common good asset has been kept secret and, it is my opinion, it is now time for “the residents of Nairn” to start seeing some transparency regarding the contract.

Moving on

Have the 4 Trustees seen and fully read the contract between Deveron and THC/Whois the legal second party? Presumably under the Freedom of Information Act if someone asked for a copy they would get it or would it be time barred?

I am concerned that the Trustees might personally be liable if this all goes pear shaped. Have they ascertained that the Indemnity insurance covering them as Councillors also cover the wider remit of being trustees?

More importantly as our 4 Councillors are wearing 2 hats – one as a paid HC councillor and one as a Trustee of the Common Good, there could be a perception of conflict of interest when acting as Trustee. The small matter of allegiance comes to mind, if there was a conflict which side would they support?

Personally I feel they should seriously consider including other “trustees” from the wider community and also include one or two volunteer Professionals with legal and accountancy backgrounds as it’s clear from the various blogs and the media that the present representation is not acceptable to many in the local community and, in my view, needs to be swiftly revisited.

Sheena Baker
26.8.09'

The Sheena Baker Inquisition

Tonight Sheena didn’t mess about. She got straight down to business, asking the status of the Council’s loan to the Community centre in regard to the refusal of the Sandown planning application.
Sandy Park replied that there was no change in the status of the loan, a sum in excess of £2,000,000 pounds. At the time the Sandown Lands were the only asset that could be offset against the loan.
Sheena was worried that the debt was being run up even more but according to Sandy the debt was in fact static. Sheena then expanding to take in comments reported in the Nairnshire on the behalf of Mark Cummings of the PR company Invicta that had been employed by the developer. William Gilfinnan told the meeting that there was nothing in the background that wasn’t know about and reiterated that the developer had three options. Earlier he had stated that the developer could appeal, resubmit the application or walk away.
Sheen persisted with her questions, she wanted to know if given the new circumstances if the Highland Council could write off the the loan. Sandy replied that he thought that the Council would expect the money back and if the council were to consider what she had suggested then he believed that they would be very reluctant to do that.
William Gilfinnan on the behalf of the council stated that the asset was still there and it was a marketable commodity.

It was good to see Sheena in action again, she quite often is prepared to ask difficult questions of the local powers that be.

Tonight's Ward Forum and Nairnshire Partnership double header at the Courthouse

Lots of interesting debate tonight, finished early for once (19.34). Sheena Baker's interrogation of the powers that be on the £2,000,000 Community Centre debt came in equal first with the Maggot Road question in terms of drama and public participation, Sandown was discussed too and other subjects. It was interesting, more folk should give it a try. Nice to see representitives from the newly constituted West Community Council contributing too. Quote of the night from the public benches: ' We should get Joanna Lumley up here'.

More later, it is now such a nice evening after the wet day that a trip to see the swans beckons. Word is that one of the cygnets is no longer with us, having been left behind or separated from its parents it sadly died despite efforts to reunite it with the adult swans.