Charrette final session in the Golf View

Oor Sandy once again introduces Jim MacKinnon, the Chief Planner to the Scottish Government.

It was quite a meeting with Jim answering some awkward questions that led to some lively debate. There were a couple of no-nos from the beginning however. Sandy started: " I think we are all aware that Sandown is Common Good land, we're not going down that road tonight, if there are any issues with common good land we are not discussing any issues anyone may have. There's a meeting on Monday night with the community councillors so we'll be discussing it in full on Monday night. So we will not entertain anything regarding the legalities or otherwise of the Common Good."

Jim stated that he understood that there were anxities about the Common Good: "As the Scottish Government we have no locus with this and from what I've seen from correspondence that has passed my way I guess that this is something that could well end up in court."

Jim outlined the other no-no too: " The other point I made and I made it a month ago in the town house, we're not revisiting the principle of development on Sandown or anything else in this area, that has been established for quite some time and it has been through a development plan examination, the reporter recommended basically endorsement of everything that was in the Highland wide local development plan. Some of you may well disagree with that, well the reporter's recommendations are binding and as I undstand it Stuart (turning to Stuart Black) you'll be taking it to the council for final endorsement as the second local development plan and the most up to date local development plan in Scotland. So revisting some of these debates really isn't on the cards."

The planning high heid yin then went on to open the debate: "What I do want to do tonight is having heard from Tim is really asking two questions. How was it for you? Is this a better way of doing business than the council say here is the plan what do you think of it? Were you able to contribute effectively to the process. Were there barriers that you felt in terms of the timing of events? I know that people were concerned at the last meeting that there wasn't sufficient notice. So I kind of think yes, we need to learn from some of the successes but also maybe we want to learn from things that maybe haven't gone so well too. At the end of the day however inclusive you find the process or however bad, at the end of the day what you will judge this by is the quality of the development that arrives in Sandown. That is the ultimate test."

There then followed a presentation by Tim Stott who showed drawings slightly amended from the previous versions and he made a plea for those present not to try to undo all the work that had gone into the charrette so are and to suggest fine tuning in the future rather than radical change and to put in what everyone could agree on but to leave flexible those areas where was presently no agreement. This observer found one part of what Tim had to say extremely interesting, he spoke on the taboo subject of the common good fund but on in the sense of its relevance to planning. He said, "It's worthwhile that the common good retains an interest, an ongoing interest in the site, we talked about a design code and one way to enforce a design code is the for the landlord if you like, it is far easy to enforce a design code if it is written into the title rather than relying on planning conditions to do that."

Tim also spoke about long leases rather than selling off the entire site. He also suggested what might be a solution for the complaint that local people are not getting their fair share of affordable housing that is built in Nairn. He said, "If you a benevolent local landowner then the Highland small communities housing trust can actually have an allocations policy that favours local people. If you are getting government grant aid for affordable housing then the allocations policy has to be on the basis of need but if you have a benevolent local land owner and a housing trust involved that doesn't rely on government hand-outs then you can alter the allocations policy in favour of local people."

After Tim's presentation Jim made reference to the unsatisfactory situation the community faced with Deveron's application for 550 houses and then opened the meeting to comments and questions. John Hart said that Sandown had been allocated for 100 houses originally to which Jim responded: "I'm always very nervous about the arithmetic of housing supply and demand, what we are trying to create is get quality out of..." He was then interrupted by laughter from a small section of those present. At this point he was pretty firm and told those amused by his comments:

"It's all very well sniggering and all of that, there are some serious issues here, we are trying to transform the planning system, there are more opportunities for public involvement in planning, guaranteed by statute than any other area of public policy and this a genuine attempt by the council to do things differently, and what I want to know is, you may have reservations about the principle of development but that debate has been had, as a way of influencing how this area was developed, do you think this was a good way of going about it."

More later

Sandown Charrette gig - Golf View tonight (weds) 7.p.m

The maps are on display and the plush seats have been brought out for the occasion and Tim Stott was fielding questions from the Highland Press Corps. It kicks off at 7.p.m and more details are available here.

Word on the street is that some of the usual suspects may be asking one or two tough questions tonight. Jingle Bangles our investigative reporter has been following up rumours that one or two folk are tooling up for a stushie down at the Golf View tonight and has discovered what could be a secret training camp up the riverside.

“Isn’t there a danger that Nairn will be overwhelmed with residential development?”

This observer enjoyed the talk given by Tim Stott of Highland Council over at the River CC meeting in the Community Centre on Tuesday night. It was a joy to actually have someone speaking without a power point presentation – a few more officials that come to Nairn should try a bit of this – why should powerpoint be so compulsory when talking to the masses? Anyway Tim gave the meeting about fifteen minutes of quality off the top of his head and then a further thirty minutes answering questions.

He explained the present status of the Highland Wide Development Plan and also the more local plan that takes in Nairn. It does seem strange to this observer calling this a local plan when it extends north to Tain, over to Garve, down to Fort Augustus and along back to encompass Nairnshire via the boundaries of the Cairngorm National Park, but such is our place in the greater scheme of things now.

Some might recall the Highland Council’s recent “call for sites” where landowners had the opportunity to put their properties up to be included in zones that will eventually be accepted for the “principle of development”. This process also gave everyone the chance to put forward suggestions for areas that should never be developed. In short it gives pro and anti development lobbies the chance to have their input into the process. Things are now at the ideas stage. In the autumn there will be a meeting in Nairn where a map will be shown indicating all the areas suggested for development and those that have been put forward as areas that should not be touched. In between now and then the Highland Council Planning Development and Environment committee will have decided what it thinks are the best options and these too will be indicated on the map. Then everyone will have a chance to react to all the proposals and then after this consultation a list of options will be drawn up next year. Those, who in Tim’s words, might be “really annoyed” by elements of the decisions made will have the chance to take the issue to a Public Local Inquiry which will be the formal legal phase at the end of the process.

River CC had suggested that the Links, Maggot, playing field, Riverside Walks and space either side of the river and Viewfield should never be developed. The only suggestion they had submitted for development was the Bus Station area. Tim indicated the development ideas that had come forward so far: Nairn South (where landowners and developers had submitted similar proposals), Househill farm (where the landowner had submitted, via an agent, the entire farm for a mixture of housing, public parks, employment, retail and tourism). Sainsbury’s were also asking for the rest of their site to be included for the principle of Class 1 retail development, giving them the option to expand in future. There was also an infill site at Lochloy adjoining the existing development, this submission was from Mr Derek MacDonald.

Later in the meeting during the Q&A session Lesley Boulton, after giving a list of all the major developments proposed in the area: “Isn’t there a danger that Nairn will be overwhelmed with residential development?”
Tim replied that Sandown had had a business park element and the wider proposal at Delneis has a golf course, a hotel and tourism related development. He went on to say: “I don’t think all these developments will happen, and they certainly won’t happen very fast because there isn’t the demand out there. I wouldn’t panic too much in thinking all these developments are going to happen because, the market demand, quite a few of them, Delnies for example, don’t have a builder lined up as far as I know.”

Lesley Boulton went on to air a complaint heard before by this observer at this type of gathering:

“Well surely the planning process is planning for a possibility, a probability, something that may never happen. It seems to be we spend a log of time going through lots of plans which will never come to fruition. Not in my lifetime anyway.”

Tim replied: “We always have a choice of sites, it is a conscious policy of the Highland Council to have a choice of sites. You don’t tie up all the land supply in Nairn with one owner, because you give all the power and the only housing site down to one land owner or developer and the price of land will go up and therefore the price of houses as well as a result of that. We don’t put all our eggs in one basket, we don’t have a single land-owner with total control of the land supply in a town. So that’s why we zone more land than there is the actual demand for people to buy houses, but the idea is to provide lots of choice, the landowners have to compete. The net result of all that is the price of land comes down therefore, other things being equal, the price of houses sold at the end of the process should be less as well.”

More from this meeting later in the week if time permits. No doubt many Gurnites will be waiting with anticipation the eventual map that appears this autumn. It’ll be worth keeping an eye on up until then and no doubt folk will want to be ready if they feel that some of the proposed developments are inappropriate or excessive. There will of course also be some that will be willing to praise developments, Gurnites will remember how the Delnies proposal received the backing of many when it was shown in the Community Centre. Interesting times aren’t they?