Is the RBS the tower of Babel?

Geoff Skeet has drawn the Gurn's attention to a letter Sandy Shaw had published in the Press and Journal. Seems like fair comment to the Gurnmeister.

SIR, – Come, let’s build a tower, the biggest tower that has ever been built. We will get bricks from other places so that our tower will be taller than anyone else’s, and we will make a name for ourselves.
What will we call it? Babel? No, that has been done before.
I know. We will take away three strong words and call it RBS.
We will put these letters everywhere, on rugby pitches and race tracks, and everyone will recognise our tower.
But what if it becomes too tall and it topples upon people? People? What are people? Our concern is the tower.

Sandy Shaw,
(pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship),

Nairn Academy asbestos contamination - 'Nairn Spelding' is not reassured by Highland Council's statement

'Do the Highland Council really expect parents to feel reassured by this statement that the asbestos in the Artex is low risk? It is incredible that these students are facing major disruption to their education weeks before they are due to sit final standard grade and higher exams.

And all the council can do is issue bland statements trying to quell what will be a rising tide of anger among the entire school community in Nairn.

When the Highland News revealed two years ago that teachers were banned from using tacks in walls the council gave assurances at the time that asbestos in all Highland Schools was being managed properly.

The latest crisis at Nairn Academy begs the question did the council register of asbestos show this material was on the ceiling and if so why were the contractors putting in these solar panels not informed It looks as if the Health and Safety officials are going to have a bean feast on this one.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you workmen with heavy boots plodding over a flat roof are going to dislodge material below.

Had this happened when pupils were in class and had they and their teachers been covered in a plume of asbestos there would have been hundreds of very concerned families in this town.
And this is not over reaction. It is a ticking time bomb which successive governments have chosen to ignore.

Does it not make you wonder how Gordon Brown manages to produce mind boggling sums of money out of a hat to save the UK banking system when the figures it would take to tackle our crumbling schools are grains of sand by comparison.
The acting rector at Nairn Academy has done a great deal during his tenure.

But its again the deficiencies of the building and not the teaching staff which could conspire to scupper the promise of many talented young people who are about to embark on a programme of exams which could determine their very futures.

With maths and computing classrooms out of commission for three weeks this will mean extra pressure on accommodation in a school where pupils are already being taught in corridors.

Another debacle for our local politicians to ponder over. Hopefully they will be tackling officials head on and not accepting platitudes and excuses.

Nairn Spelding.'

Asbestos has been found in the debris at Nairn Academy

Highland Council admit asbestos contamination!

'Air and dust sampling in the affected area has identified no evidence of asbestos within the air space but asbestos has been found in flakes of artex debris on the floor. The presence of asbestos in artex is known but presents a low risk to health.'

'The Council has advised the Health and Safety Executive of the incident and of its plans to deal with the contamination. '

The full press release:

Nairn Academy Update (03/03/09)

Pupils in secondary 4, 5 and 6 will return to Nairn Academy tomorrow (Wednesday) as the clean up continues after dust and debris were found in the upper floor of the school following weekend roof works.
Secondary 3 pupils will return on Thursday and Secondary 2 pupils on Friday.

Due to the extent and nature of the debris, it is likely that the maths and computing rooms will remain out of commission for the next three or four weeks.

Arrangements for schooling next week will be confirmed later in the week.

The school was closed to all pupils at noon on Monday after debris was found in the maths and computing classrooms and upper floor concourse.

Contractors had been working at the weekend on preparing the roof for the installation of 24 solar panels. The vibration of the works resulted in damage to the ceiling and the release of dust and debris.

Air and dust sampling in the affected area has identified no evidence of asbestos within the air space but asbestos has been found in flakes of artex debris on the floor. The presence of asbestos in artex is known but presents a low risk to health.

Discussions are ongoing within the school to determine a clean-up programme which minimises disruption to the working of the school.

The Council has advised the Health and Safety Executive of the incident and of its plans to deal with the contamination.

Academy reopening in stages

Thanks to anon and Nairnlass for info:

Message on school phone service from the rector advising school will be open Wednesday for 4th, 5th and 6th years and on Thursday 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th years.

You can listen to the message yourself on Highland Council schools phone service where you dial in on 08700 546 999 then enter the nairn academy code of 042 700 then choose option 3 for general messages. There will be further updates on that number.

UPDATE: meanwhile the Inverness Courier has now published a highly critical editorial article analysing the situation and giving further background to what happened. It is entitled 'Worthless policies' and you can read it here.

Nairn Academy remains closed - A concerned parent speaks out

This morning all quiet at Nairn Academy, the Gurn saw one teacher arriving, no doubt to find out the latest news, and then leave. There were just a small cluster of vehicles in the normally packed car park. See the article below for more background on this story.

Meanwhile more information has been reported in the Press and Journal. Children were sent home with a letter explaining the situation to their parents:

The council letter stated: “Following work on the roof of the upper school, mathematics staff came into school this morning to discover significant quantities of dust on the floors and work surfaces.
“The school’s head janitor was contacted immediately and confirmed the presence of asbestos material in the Artex in this part of the school. By 8.15am this area of the school was sealed off.”
Cawdor shopkeeper John Macintosh, 58, who has a son and daughter at the academy, said he knew of the presence of asbestos at the school but it was not previously deemed hazardous because of a house rule that drawing pins were not used on classroom walls.
He said: “I think this is quite a serious matter. I’m looking for some reassurance that there’s a nil likelihood of any harm to my children’s health. A ‘low’ level is not sufficient. The school should be closed until such time as we get some assurances that there is nothing harmful there for the children.
“This seems to be a serious incident.”

The P& J have also spoken to the Provost. For the entire article go to the Press and Journal site.

UPDATE: The Gurn has been given the following web site address: 'Asbestos in Schools' The site states:'The aim of this site is to inform parents, teachers and ancillary staff about asbestos in schools. It gives guidance on how to improve the management of asbestos in schools. It aims to encourages openness in the UK Government's policy towards asbestos in schools'

The site contains information on management of asbestos, suggested improvements to policy, guidance and a database of media articles plus papers on asbestos to download.

UPDATE: The Inverness Courier speaks to Councillor Graham Marsden:

"In my view it was a sensible thing to do because the last thing we can do is put children at harm," he said. "As far as I'm concerned this adds weight to the argument that really what we need is a new academy." More on the Courier site.

Nairn Academy closed due to Asbestos scare!

Please note 4 updates to this article now!

'The Doc hears today from Nairn Academy, that the school was closed at mid-day today , due to suspected asbestos in one classroom , there was a suspicious dusting of a white materiel over this classroom so the school was closed, tests are being carried out and parents can use the usual bad weather telephone system and moray firth radio in the morning to see if the school will re-open.'

Thanks Doc for that breaking news, the Gurn has now been contacted by another source with further information which will be on-line shortly.

UPDATE:

The Gurn understands from a source that workers installing solar panels on the roof may have dislodged material in between the roof and the ceiling, this would explain the dust that was found by the janitors who quickly raised the alarm. Perhaps some readers will remember the Highland News article which alerted the public to the danger facing teachers from asbestos if they were to put drawing pins into the wall?

This further asks the question just how much asbestos is there in Nairn Academy? Is it a safe environment for the children, teachers and other staff full stop? With the construction of the science block and the special education unit are the Highland Council simply trying to make a silk purse out of a pig’s ear? After all what is the use of adding that onto a building containing asbestos and suffering from leaky roofs? How is the cash-strapped Highland Council going to be able to bring this building up to standard? The Gurn hears that kids are now preparing for their exams, not much fun to have this type of interference with your education is it? Remember the school had to close before Christmas 2007 with heating problems, even without this latest setback it is obvious that Nairn Academy is a school in crisis. Nairn deserves better – will all the politicians campaign for the town on this or simply indulge in another pathetic squabble?

What happens next? Would it be better to cancel the Sandown 550 house scheme and build a school fit for purpose on the publicly owned land? Remember we need a school capable of coping with the proposed expansion of the town. In the short term let’s hope the tests being carried out on the material prove negative for asbestos.

Are you a parent, a teacher, a worker or a pupil at the Academy? What do you think?

UPDATE:

The Gurn understands the school will stay closed tomorrow but that investigations and clean-up may mean that the 'upper' part of the school will remain closed for longer.

UPDATE: A search on Google reveals that Nairn Academy seems to be well on its way to achieving international notoriety for its asbestos problem, here's a report on Mesothelioma International: 'Highland School full of asbestos'.

UPDATE: The Mesothelioma International site says, 'Local officials say that they are well aware of the problem and have begun a massive campaign to renovate buildings found to contain asbestos.'

Yet in an article of 19th Oct 2008 detailing the huge scandal of asbestos in Scottish schools the Sunday Mail claims: 'Out of 211 Highland Council schools, 126 have asbestos. But they spent only £55,500 in three years removing it.

The Gurn asks how much money has been spent so far putting the Nairn Academy asbestos problem right and can our four councillors put their hands on their hearts and say Nairn Academy is a safe environment for children?

Nairn, roads and a hot political debate

The Nairn By-pass seems to be at the top of today's political debate in the Highlands. The Gurn has received an SNP press release from Dave Thomson MSP who challenges the Lib Dems with the following letter he has sent to the P&J:

Dear Sir,

Let us have a little honesty in politics. And let us start with the Liberal Democrats and MP Danny Alexander.

Mr Alexander has been shamelessly scaremongering that Scottish Government transport priorities will prohibit the building of any new road projects until 2017. He has even gone so far as to print "Nairn Bypass Now" stickers in an attempt to substantiate his ridiculous claims on the bumper of every car in the Highlands.

In reality however, it is the LibDems' Scottish leader Tavish Scott who has signed his name to the Liberal Democrat policy stating "We believe that building more roads and runways will not tackle congestion." In fact, it was the Liberal Democrats who voted for £500 million of Scottish Government money to be diverted to build Edinburgh's trams rather than Highland projects.
It is the leader of Danny Alexander's Westminster group of Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, who has announced that future Liberal Democrat policy will cut 90% from building new roads.
And it is the Liberal Democrats tax policies which will mean cuts in public spending by £800 million in Scotland and £20 billion across the UK. How can they pay for their promises in the Highlands when in Edinburgh and London they support cutting spending on road projects?
It all means something very simple.

Liberal Democrats had the means and the money to support the Nairn Bypass. They made other choices but think they can take the voters for fools by promising something that they will have no money to pay for. That is just not credible nor honest politics.

Under the previous LibDem/Labour administration no major road projects were started in the Highlands in eight years in power - it is the SNP that have announced dualling the A9, upgrading the A82 and provided funding for the eastern approach for the Inverness by-pass.
If we had a Liberal Democrat administration none of those projects would have had funding, and schemes such as the Nairn Bypass or the Inverness TLR would never be started, far less finished.
Yours sincerely,

Dave Thompson MSP

Dave Thompson has some other harsh words for Danny Alexander, he states in his press release:

"Danny Alexander has some questions to answer about why he is telling Highlanders one thing whilst supporting a different policy when in London. Voters don't like being treated as fools by sneaky LibDem politicians.
"He should stop hiding the LibDems’ failures behind bluff, bluster and misleading statements. It's time the LibDems told the truth to people across the Highlands about their policy on roads and recognised the damaging impact their policies would have on the Highland economy.
”If we had a Liberal Democrat administration none of those projects would have had funding and schemes such as the Nairn Bypass or the Inverness TLR would never be started, far less finished.”

There we go folks, looks like we can expect more debate on the by-pass issue. You can read the full press release from Dave Thomson on this web page.

Could a Tory campaign help Nairn town centre?

We’ve already had the LibDems starting a Nairn by-pass campaign and now there are suggestions that we should make use of a Scottish Conservative campaign site. Iright has already commented about the site but anyway here is a suggestion from Samantha:

Hello everyone,

I have been asked by John Mackie to contact as many people as possible to garner support for this initative. Scotland has been given £60 million to refurbish the high streets of small towns and villages. By clicking on www.HelpOurHighStreet.com you can give your ideas and also vote for our town to receive some of this money. Our community council will also be involved in this process and are keen to hear the ideas from the community and to get the community to vote in this scheme.

For those of you who attended the Prince's Foundation workshop last year, you may like to think about the ideas which surfaced for our Town Centre on the final night. The ideas and opinions expressed there may spark something for you to suggest.

I have had a look at the voting site and it asks why our town should get the money, not necessarily what we want and I think the Government will also be looking for strength of numbers i.e. how interested and committed is the community of each town to voting for a share of the £60 million. So....... it is up to each of us. Please pass this on to as many people as possible and spread the word. If someone does not have a computer, there are P.C.s at the local library for public use at no charge.

Please take this opportunity to show that we, the community, can come up with something better for our town centre than a Supermarket .

Samantha Bacon

Well the Gurnmeister can see no harm at all in this initiative and if we can come up with enough original ideas then all well and good the politicians will hopefully take them up on our behalf. Let's get the whole lot of them working for us, then we can base our decisions at the next election on results and not the usual beauty contest.

10k and fun run

Blue skies above Nairn today for the annual 10k and fun runs. Pictures will enlarge and more coming soon.

UPDATE: slideshow now available here but please note some pictures lose quality when compressed into the sideshow and are perhaps best seen individually in the album.

No line yet but is history getting by-passed?

Liz has left a comment on the article concerning the Lib Dem campaign site for a Nairn by-pass. Here it is fellow Gurnites:

'It should be recognised that the SNP Scottish Government is the first ever to specify a by-pass for Nairn in their Strategic Transport Project Review. The Lib Dem and Labour administration of the first 8 years of Scottish Gov didn't even agree there was a need for a by-pass. I agree that lobbying should be continued and now is not the time to be complacent. The Scottish Gov wants to deliver on it's pledges and we must all do what we can to move it forward. The Highland Council minutes of TEC Committee 22 January 2009 state that TEC Services should work closely with Planning and Development Services during the Highland Structure Plan Review to identify a viable route for Nairn Bypass. This was included because of my contributions. '

You can see the new Lib Dem by-pass campaign blog here.