Inaugural meeting of Nairn West and Suburban Community Council - Monday 18th November 7pm Nairn Community and Arts Centre

Are you a candidate in the election to Nairn River Community Council?

Are you a candidate in the election to Nairn River Community Council?

In the hope of encouraging public interest in the election www.gurnnurn.com would like to offer each candidate the opportunity to say a bit about themselves and why they are standing for election.

It'll be a maximum of 500 words (as little or as much as you like) and please include a picture of yourself if you wish.

It'd be cool if there was a massive turnout for this election – good for Nairn, good for democracy and good for telling the world what this community thinks and desires.

Please send details to info@gurnnurn.com

Police looking for Wheelie Bin fire-raisers - 3 fires evening Friday 8 Nov in Nairn - can you help?

Officers are making inquiries after 3 separate wheelie bin fires in #Nairn - LochLoy Rd & Balblair Rd on Friday 8 Nov in the evening. Call 101 quoting 4684 if you know who was responsible pic.twitter.com/QeBXqPO8sE

— Northern Police (@northernPolice) November 10, 2019

Affordable Housing and CAB for former Social Work buildings on King Street. Regeneration - demolition or renovation? Cash from Scottish Government Town Centre capital grant fund

From a Highland Council press release:

"Over £2.3 million pounds of investment is set to benefit town centres across the Highlands with 30 transformational projects about to get underway to stimulate economic investment and to help towns diversify and flourish.

The Town Centre capital grant fund from the Scottish Government is targeted to encourage town and city centres to diversify and flourish, giving new purpose and creating footfall.

To reflect the Council’s commitment to localism over the last few months Area Committees* have been actively engaging with communities and involved in helping to identifying and recommend ranked projects that fit in with the criteria. A Cross Party Working Group have then approved the successful projects.

They include:"

And they include Nairn:

"Nairnshire:

King Street, Nairn – Regeneration of vacant town centre property into a mixed use (Nairn Citizens Advice Bureau and affordable housing) development."

Here at the Gurn we had heard a rumour that this was on the way and that perhaps there would be a demolition of the existing building involved before work got underway on the accommodation and CAB office. No doubt more details will eventually be revealed. 

Murd Dunbar will be delighted he has been calling for the former social work buildings to be turned into accommodation for many years. Perhaps they've finally taken the hint Murd?

Nairn Healthcare News Autumn 2019

Here's the Latest Nairn Healthcare newsletter. A Word document converted to image files for easier posting. Click on each image to enlarge if you are having trouble reading. The links in the images will not work but you can see the document on a web page where they will here. 

Nairn Healthcare website is here. 

Kennel Cough in the Nairn area.

Moray Coast Vets are reporting a high number of cases of Kennel Cough in the area at the moment.

They said, 

"Kennel cough is an umbrella term given to a number of different viruses and bacteria that cause an infectious cough in dogs. They attack the lining of a dog's respiratory tract causing inflammation resulting in irritation and a dry cough. In the majority of cases this is self limiting and is much like us having a cold.

It is highly contagious however. Dogs can be infected via airborne spread, direct contact with infected dogs or indirect contact with things infected dogs have slobbered on eg toys and bowls. An infected dog tends to be contagious for 2 weeks and may still cough in this time or may not. 

If your dog has kennel cough it is not an emergency. Like the human cold it very rarely needs treatment. In majority of cases they will recover uneventfully with TLC and wetting dry food so as to limit discomfort on the throat.

There is no need to seek veterinary attention unless this cough is ongoing for over a week or if your dog is off food or listless.

If your dog is infected it would be good idea to isolate them from other dogs as much as possible for 2 weeks-eg avoiding groomers, vets, and popular walking areas.

There is a kennel cough vaccine available, It doesn't provide a 100% protection but will reduce the severity and duration of signs should your dog get infected. We'd recommend the vaccine for dogs most at risk ie those mixing with a lot of dogs for example attending classes, dog walkers, groomers etc."

Plans for Albyn supported housing development off Cawdor Road thrown out by councillors

Watch the video of the debate at the Highland Council planning meeting below:

The P&J reported:

"Members of the south planning committee went to the site of the proposed 10-unit Albyn Housing development in Cawdor Road before making their decision.

They witnessed considerable noise from the neighbouring sawmill, and agreed that a 16ft high fence proposed to mitigate noise from the sawmill would be inadequate to reduce noise in the development."

More here

Never mind the General Election - who's going to get on River Community Council? 21 nominations for 12 seats - postal ballot to be held and pre-paid envelope must be back by 12 noon Weds 4th December

Fissures of electoral excitement spreading through the town as the hopefuls for the new Nairn River Community Council term of office are revealed.

Unless there are withdrawals then there will be quite a long ballot paper for voters in the River CC area (Comhairle Coimhearsnachd Abhainn Narann - Representing Lochloy, Merryton, Boath Park, River Park, Broadhill, Fishertown, The High Street area, Mill Rd/Church Street, Cawdor Rd, Queenspark and Firhall). 

According to the Highland Council website the names of candidates nominated are:

Hamish Donald Bain
Steven James Bain
Paul Cutress
Ann Fuller
Stephen Kenneth Fuller

Peter Gibson
Ian Ramsay Gordon
Helena Harcourt
Ian Michael Henderson
Tommy Hogg
Mandy Lawson
Veronica Mackinnon
Louis Anderson McIntosh
Paul Carlo McIvor
Linda Morton
Simon Noble
Paul Oldham
Jim Ross
Stewart Hunter Stansfield
David Fraser Thomson
Katrina Ann Woods

The Council also state: "At the close of the Nomination period for the above election, the number of candidates validly exceeded the total maximum permitted membership as specified for the Community Council area. An election will now take place and each elector will be entitled to vote for a number of candidates up to 12. Ballot papers will be issued by post to all registered electors in their community council area and must be returned in the pre-paid envelope provided by 12 noon on Wednesday, 4 December 2019."

There will be no contest on Nairn West and Suburban as the number of candidates was equal to or below the number of councillors to be returned.

The successful candidates are:

Sheena Baker
Jimmy Ferguson
John Alan Hampson
Ally MacDonald
Lorraine Mallinson
Alastair Luckington Noble
Brian Edward Stewart
Bill Young
Richard Youngson

Update, after close of nominations and withdrawal period there will now be 20 candidates for the River CC election. Paul Oldham must have withdraw his nomination. 

Highland Council's new car-parking policy "It's going to be a hard sell to our local communities"

We've quoted Cllr Peter Sagers in the headline above. More details, in a moment, on where to find what Nairn Councillors had to say at a Highland Council committee meeting yesterday.

Here's what the Press and Journal had to say in advance of the meeting:

" A new policy is being proposed to resolve the bitterly-contested issue of car parking charges.

Decisions about parking charges in Highland Council’s area would be decided by local communities, who will choose where the fees will be implemented and how much to charge.

They would also be able to choose how much of the revenue raised would stay locally and even have the right to refuse to implement charges if they choose.

The council’s area committees would assume responsibility for the decisions made and for implementing them." More here. 

After fast-forwarding the web-cast to see what Nairn Councillors had to say and dipping in and out of other parts of an almost 3 hour long video, this observer (making an unscientific guess) would perhaps imagine that at some time in the not too distant future we might see parking charges in some areas of the town but not the town centre with proceeds being split between the Council and the local community. 

You can try to a certain extent to read the runes from what people have to say but, over and above that, surely it would be total madness to implement car parking charges in the town centre when Balmakeith is about to expand into almost an alternative High Street with free parking?

So here's the webcast readers. Liz speaks at 37.12 into the vid and also at 2.28.55 and Cllr Peter Saggers at 1.24.16. Maybe others from Nairn spoke but didn't see them as I moved forward looking to see who was making contributions. Warning - there is a lot of Council-speak in the webcast and sometimes life can be too short to listen to too much of that!

Cash boost for Nairn Play