Woolies building reopens as Nickel and Dime

Good to see the shop open again, at 10.00 a.m. a steady stream of people were heading into the store. One woman left carrying an ironing board and seemed very happy with her purchase, others emerged carrying smaller items. 12.45 update: a quick walk around finds a store where space has been utilised far more intelligently than woolies ever did. It does although have a woolies feel about it, it is after all the building we all know so well. It was great to see Nairnites greeting each other and chatting as they moved around to inspect the thousands of items to chose from. Many were buying. 'Haven't seen you for ages,' said someone to a friend. And you are indeed more likely to see Nairn people in Inverness, Forres and Elgin retail outlets rather than Nairn High Street. Nickel and Dime have gone some way to redressing the balance. All we need now is a Sainsbury's for Christmas but in the meantime Nairn's wet weather retail therapy centre is open once again.

Woolies no more

Woolies - It's Nickel and Dime that are moving in!

Thanks to a Gurnite correspondent who confirmed the name of the store with details from a reliable source as opposed to the gurn's usual unreliable ones :-) That's it folks - 'Nickel and Dime' coming soon to the High Street.

Exclusive - Inverness 'Woolies' style store to open branch in Nairn's former Woolworth's building.

The Gurn's unreliable source told us how the Inverness business plans to move in for the Christmas rush and perhaps beyond that too. You could ensure that Gurnites (if and when this comes off) if you smash open the piggy banks and go down town on a spending spree, thus ensuring the future of this central building as a retail space. Fingers crossed Gurnites, this could be just the lift the High Street needs!

Water Lane planning application for Woolworths site will have to be resubmitted under Scottish Government's new planning rules!

Gurnites will remember the details published on the Gurn concerning the proposal for 5 town houses on the rear of Woolworths Nairn. Well alert gurnite Iain noticed a flaw in the report concerning the notice to neighbours. He said in a comment on Sunday evening:

'Did no one tell them that the Area Planning Office at 88 High Street (Barron House) had closed? Or am I missing something? If I am right then a new batch of letters will be required.'

This information was forwarded to Provost Liz who relayed the concern to the appropriate planning officer for his action. The result was that by 9.30 a.m. the next morning, Dave Polson, the local area Planning and Building Standards manager, had agreed with Iain's analyis. He said in an e-mail back to Liz that was copied to a concerned resident:

'The application has arrived in the office, but we do not consider it contains sufficient information. Also, as pointed out, the neighbour notification has not been undertaken correctly and this invalidates the application.
It will be sent back to the agent, who will be asked to re-submit. As and when it is re-submitted, neighbour notification will have to be undertaken by the Council. The responsibility falls to us as of today. Also, we would wish to have the application advertised.'

Well done Highland Council in ensuring fair play to the local residents. The Gurn can also reveal that another resident of Water Lane headed for that closed planning office when served with the neighbour's notice. She found it shut and headed for the Courthouse. The Courthouse staff had no copy of the application and were even unaware of its existence. They pointed her in the direction of Inverness. A worried resident then had to travel through to seek a copy of the detailed plans in Inverness. Concerned community councillors predicted that this might happen when the Nairn planning office closed and it looks like, for this application at least, that fear became a reality. Only time will tell if other Nairn residents will have to suffer the same indignity.

Another interesting fact concerning this application is that it will have to be submitted under the Scottish Government's new planning guidelines. Mr Polson makes reference to this in his e-mail. Now developers have to carry out proper consultation with locals and according to the BBC site:

'The responsibility to notify neighbouring landowners about applications falls on planning authorities, rather than developers. Ministers expect authorities to do this "as soon as possible" after an application is validated, while neighbours now have 21 days, rather than the previous 14, to raise any concerns. '

Full details on these changes over on the BBC webpages.

Water Lane residents are waiting on a new application being submitted. One of them told the Gurn:

'Folk throughout the town should pay attention to this plan. If the like of this gets the go-ahead in Water Lane then the floodgates will be open for anything on any spare bit of ground anywhere in the town.'

More news as it happens gurnites.

Five 'town houses' for rear part of Woolies building?

Picture will enlarge. Anyone that knows the Water Lane area might be surprised at the scale and density of this development given that the High Street area is characterised by its Closes with little or no parking (a situation made worse recently with the loss of 7 spaces on the brae). Parts of Water Lane are so narrow that a car cannot safely pass a pedestrian without the vehicle or the human being giving way. According to this plan there are only to be three parking spaces for five 'town houses'. You can't blame a developer for trying to make the most of the former Woolies building but surely five houses down such a small lane is over development? Is this the face of the future for Nairn, massive infill on every spare bit of land that comes up for grabs?

As the notice to neighbours states:

'The application, plans and other documents submitted may be inspected at all reasonable hours in the register of planning application kept by the Planning Authority at the Area Planning Office at 88 High Street, Nairn during the period of 14 days beginning with the date of this notice; and any person who wishes to make representations to the above-mentioned Council about the application should make them in writing within that period to the Council at the address of the Area Planning Office given above.'

There you are Gurnites, if you are worried about any aspects of this plan or would like to find out the exact details, you know where to go. It could be happening in a street near you next!

Another opening

Some six months after it closed its doors Nairn’s Woolworth’s shop has new tenants in the form of Wildday.com. Nairnites flooded through the doors yesterday to browse and have a look around the old store. Wildday only have a 10 day tenancy on the property so the opening is short lived, however, an unconfirmed report suggests that the store will soon be opening on a more permanent basis selling Woolworth’s type goods.
Good to see that business can thrive on our High Street

Woolies building coming back to life - for a short period only.

Breaking news. Wild day.com are moving into Woolies this evening and will be opening soon for a short period. Recently the roving entity went into the shop formerly known as Pulse for a short stay too, since then that building will shortly be opening up as a jewellers. Good to see something happening in Woolies, even if it will be short-lived.

Rumours of massive pro-Woolies demonstration tonight!

The Gurn's usual unreliable sources indicate that there will be a massive demonstration tonight in support of Woolworths. We are trying to find out more and will report later. In the meantime with the increase of folk coming down for a look and perhaps a final shop in the iconic flagship High Street store, the Highland Council have installed a public viewing platform to enable free flow of pedestrians and traffic.

The night Woolies died

Quite ironic that less than an hour after Woolies went into administration the Nairn Ward Partnership were to meet just across the road from the Nairn store in the Courthouse and discuss the town centre redevelopment plan. It seems both Somerfield and the Highland Council are putting a brave face on it and moving towards January when, hopefully, outstanding issues can be addressed. And that is? Well something called ‘purifying the title’ on the Council side and preparing a ‘Green Travel Plan’ on the Somerfield side. The Trunk Roads Authority still need to make an input too. Yes they are working hard behind the scenes but as we know there are other factors that will come into play soon and the Co-op seem not to be in the slightest bit interested in letting the Council know what is their ultimate intention with the Nairn store and as for dealing with the folk at Somerfield - well they are a business sitting on death row, they will quite happily fill in the time talking to anyone who still takes them seriously. We’ve heard it all before really, the rest you can make up for yourself in the meantime, maybe someone will market a ‘Strictly Nairn town centre redevelopment’ game for Christmas. The real fun comes in 2009. Sheena Baker asked her usual question about what would happen once the town land was finally handed over to the supermarket owner and say, they didn’t build a new supermarket? Her big worry is that this might happen and there would be no way that Nairn could get the land back. Reading in-between the lines of the response she got from officials the Gurnmesiter reckons that would be it, the land would be gone for good out of public ownership.

There were also council officials giving talks about how community groups can apply for funding, very complicated stuff and you must meet the criteria and have matching funding etc, the Gurnmeister got very bored with it and after the discussion on Somerfield and a bit about other developments that didn’t really reveal anything new, another gentleman in a suit got up to deliver a presentation. The Gurn made its excuses and left. You can get too much of all this 'masterplan' stuff, this wish list stuff, this A96 corridor stuff, this meeting in Edinburgh stuff. Fair play to anyone that stayed the course, the Gurn salutes your courage.

Never mind the Somerfield saga, tonight please spare a thought for the woolies staff who will come down the street tomorrow to an uncertain future and wondering even if there will be anything left in their pension fund. There were billions available for the banks – will the government give anything to help the 30,000 woolies staff?

A quick walk around the wonder of Woolies

The Christmas lights going up this morning. Later on the Gurnmeister had a stroll around Woolworths, hoping that it would still be in existence next week and that wasn't the last time ever inside the familiar store. Let us hope the lights in the Woolworth building will not be turned off before the Christmas lights go on. Once again a part of Nairn's retail landscape awaits the decision of others far away from the town.

Perhaps we should have a march to save Woolies? - only joking Spurtles.