Nairn Town Centre - 2 important dates if you want to get involved!

Tomorrow (Wednesday 6th):

Special Ward Forum on Nairn Town Centre Consultation to be held on Wednesday 6 October at 7.00 pm in the Chamber, The Court House, Nairn.
This will be your chance to try and stop the flats or more flats Plan B options for the town centre should you feel so inclined.

Tuesday October 12th:

Joint Community Council meeting on the Development Brief for the town centre - a chance to join the resistance if the Highland Council doesn't get the message on the 6th?

Suburban, West & River meeting together - Why don't they do that all the time? We could then call it 'The Town Council of the Royal and Ancient Burgh of Nairn.'

The joint meeting will commence at around 7.45 p.m. in the Laing Hall, before that there will be some River CC business starting at 7.00 p.m.

Highland Council spends £400,000 a month on agency staff

If Highland Council could manage a month without agency workers then there would probably be enough money to keep Nairn Swimming Pool open

'A COUNCIL faced with making £42million worth of cuts is spending almost £400,000 a month on agency workers, according to new figures.

Highland Council is also imposing a recruitment freeze, but yesterday it emerged it spent almost £3million on agency staff in the last financial year, around £250,000 a month.'

More in the Press & Journal.

Highland Council 800k down from Co-op's decision - discussion today at Glenurqhuart Road

An item on the Resources Committee meeting agenda today through in Inverness:

19. Financial consequences resulting from the Co-operative Group
Ltd/Somerfield decision to refurbish but not expand their store in King Street, Nairn

There is circulated Report No. RES-140-10 dated 20 September, 2010 by the Corporate Manager (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) which outlines the financial consequences to the Council resulting from the Co-op/Somerfield’s decision not to expand their store in King Street, Nairn. In particular the report highlights the loss of the £800,000 capital receipt which had been due to be received by the Council from the Co-op/Somerfield.

The Committee is asked to note the financial consequences to the Council resulting from the Co-op/Somerfield decision on 3 September 2010 to withdraw from the Missives.

Nairn Cats Protection site

Anyone willing to rehome a cat? The local Cats Protection group have animals that are now needing a home. To see the cats and find out more about the group's work click here.

Vote for Nairn in the BT race for Infinity

"The race to infinity

BT is investing in the future of our internet by rolling out next-generation fibre optic broadband. Join The Race to Infinity today and your area could be next to enjoy superfast speeds."

Thanks to Andrew King for alerting Gurnshire to this one. Just head for that page and put in your postcode.

Problems mount for Highland Council over Nairn town centre

It seems the Council loaned money to help build the Community Centre and hoped to get it back from the sale of the land to the Co-op. It hasn't happened however and the disaster that is the town centre seems to be worse than first thought. 'Interest on the loan is estimated at around £36,700 per annum.' according to the Press & Journal. (of course the community centre has a debt of its own too but here we're just talking about the council's tab). Further costs too:

'A report to go before the council’s resources committee next week also reveals that the local authority spent a total of £21,858 on fees while pursuing the sale of land to the Co-op.'

Now we can see why it would be handy for the Highland Council to sell town centre land to developers for flats, a move which is proving highly unpopular among the populace. The brewing discontent should come to a head at the Ward Forum meeting on Weds night.

More in an excellent Press & Journal article here.

A Town Council for the Royal and Ancient Burgh of Nairn?

See the new poll in the side-bar. Here at the Gurn we think it would be a good defence against Inverness rule. It could be done by simply combining River, Suburban & West Community Councils into one organisation. The councillors that are on those three bodies offer their services to the Community for free and would continue to do so on the new body so there would be no extra cost to the public purse there. Here at the Gurn we would like to see this come about as part of the ongoing Community Council review.

If you agree, tell Liz, Sandy, Laurie & Graham and also speak to your community councillors. It's our community and it's a changing world. We will have to do more for ourselves as local government services disintegrate under the forthcoming cuts. It would be best if we had a democratically elected Town Council to protect the town's interests and work effectively with the other community councils in the County to likewise look after the interests and identity of Nairnshire. What do you think?

7967 - Groundhog Day lucky number?

Thanks to a regular Gurnite for this one.

Retire to Spindrift?

Far from the madding crowd out at Spindrift.

A96 roadworks at Tradespark