Guardian Country Diary - River Nairn

Ray Collier watches the Dippers on the River Nairn. Of course regular blog readers in Gurnshire will have already had the dipper details from Seumas.

Invercentric bus pauses at Blairmore

Picture will enlarge

Town centre Ring-collared doves

A pair of Ring-collared doves rest on a town centre perch. Picture will enlarge.

Liz calls for survey on Sewage Bridge

The missing rail on the sewage bridge has prompted Liz to start asking questions about the state of this popular crossing. You can keep up to date with Liz by bookmarking her twitter page.

SNP hold Gurnshire with over 50% of the vote!

The digital polling both closed last night and as the returning officer for the cyber-constituency of Gurnshire I can reveal that 419 votes were cast and the SNP have it in the bag. The full results were as follows:

SNP 51% 216

Lab 17% 72

Con 11% 49

LibDem 7% 30

Green 6% 29

UKIP 4% 18

Other 0% 4

None of the above 0% 1

That was the fun poll, the real thing starts in less than 24 hours. Interesting times indeed!

Fire at the Caley

Police and two local fire engines in attendance. Everyone out safely, excellent work by Nairn Fire Brigade - well done boys! More pictures here on the Gurn flickr pages.

Will Sandown ever, ever go away?

Sandown still hangs like a dark shawdow over a lot of issues in Nairn, maybe it'll take a generation or two before the mess it has seemed to leave in its wake is forgotten. Soon too there will be more consultation on what the next plan for Sandown will be - and more controversy if Highland Council fail to listen to the community?

"Legacy of Sandown?" Thunders this week's Nairnshire: "Was planned development the critical factor being Nairn's extra signals?" They ask. Heavily featured in this week's front page is a section of the Reporter, Ms McNair's, decision on the Sainsbury's development. A very important paragraph indeed it seems, featured recently on the Gurn. You can read it here if you can't wait until tomorrow.
So read the Nairnshire Gurnites, to see how the paragraph in question was debated at the Suburban CC and there's interesting analysis from Iain Bain too in his editorial. He has hard hitting opinions about Transport Scotland seemed to be looking for at both the Sandown and Sainsbury's inquiries. Oor Sandy is quoted and he is adamant that the new signals have nothing to do with Sandown however. All that and much more, including the Single Council for Nairn issue again on page 5. Yours for 40p at a Co-op near you.

Last minute Christian bandwagon building for a list seat?

Above you can see the latest prices on the political section from the Paddy Power bookies site. There is no change in the prices for the big four parties since we had a look last Wednesday with Fergus still set to storm it but note how the Scottish Christian Party and UKIP have entered the reckoning. You get better odds on the Christians than the Tories. Also coming up fast on Mary Scanlon are UKIP. Of course these are prices for the Constituency result but if that pattern is reflected across the list for the Highlands and Islands then the result could be very interesting indeed.
Remember too at the General Election this time last year the SCP beat the Greens when it came to crosses on the ballot papers. Interesting times.

MacLean Court long grass

McLean Court grass is in dire need of a good cut (pictures will enlarge). Come on Highland Council get it sorted! Don't let Nairn's appearance slide this summer.

UPDATE: this in from Liz

" I spoke to housing and TEC's a few weeks ago about the grass cutting at McLean Court and Queenspark Gardens.

It has not been transferred over through the grass cutting tender and it is up to housing to get in a contractor to do this work. It also affects around 20 elderly or disabled folk who depend on the garden scheme to keep their grass cut. This means it'll be late starting. Housing were not aware of this oversight until I raised it with them.

TEC's are still responsible for doing the borders at Queenspark and McLean Court. I think as the contract pans out more areas will come to light that have been overlooked. I've heard the contractor made a good start in Nairn, but in Inverness and B&S there have been problems and the staff have been transfered to deal with these areas."

Liz added that with the new contracts set at a lower standard of fewer cuts than the previous method used by the council then she was worried that standards wouldn't just drop but they could "plummet".

Fraserburgh 2 Nairn 2

Pictures from club photographer Donald Matheson. A dress rehersal for the cup final on the 14th. Match report here and individual pictures here.