New Shops?

The Empty Shops Network is on the lookout for empty shops to turn into short-term temporary pop-up shops, community spaces and galleries.
It would certainly make our High Street more attractive if some if not all of the now closed shops were open again. Could Nairn become a centre of the arts on the back of shops being turned in the likes of galleries and workshops? I’m sure the majority of Nainites would welcome this move rather than the current displays of growing empty windows that greet us at the moment?
/span

Praise for Nairn Academy Staff and Pupils

As the asbestos clean-up operation continues at Nairn Academy, Highland Council has praised both staff and pupils for the way they have responded to the partial closure of the school.
The schools hopes to be fully re-opened post the Easter break when remedial work should be finished

Ducks for sale

CLIC Sargent is organising a fund raising duck race on the river Nairn on April 25th, the charity offers a range of support and services for children who have cancer.
£5 gets you a duck (Plastic) and the chance of a free T-shirt (See full P&J article for details) and no feeding the ducks plastic crumbs folks!

Academy clean could cost tens of thousands

The Highland News has done a follow-up on the asbestos scare at Nairn Academy. It seems the clean-up will cost tens of thousands and the paper says that there was no insurance cover. More details here.

........Opinion Poll
What do you think? Do you feel that the Academy is a safe building? You can vote over on the Gurn on Sunday Opinion Poll - you'll find it in the side-bar on the right hand side at the top of the page

Store wars and intimidation of councillors in the Highlands

Are members of the public getting out of hand in their antipathy towards councillors and officials? The Herald quotes an observer of recent events in Tain.

'He said: "It was obvious that the officials were really quite stunned and shocked, while some of the councillors were quite simply frightened. I was opposed to Tesco getting permission. The traffic and parking issues clearly made it the wrong site. That was the clear local consensus.
"But this was no way to conduct business, no matter what you think about the power of Tesco. It is not easy to argue sensibly when you are being booed and hissed at by members of the public. If decision-making meetings like this are to be held in local communities, there will have to be policing or security." '

The Gurn has commented before about the chasm that appears to be forming between the electorate and the Highland Council and obviously this antipathy will surface at every occasion that arises. We only have to look back to events at the Sainsbury's planning meeting in the Courthouse last year as an example of how many citizens feel about the Highland Council. Anyway read about all the store wars battle zones in the Highlands in this article

MacLean Court Day Care safe for six months

As predicted the Housing and Social Work committee went for the reprieve and review option: 'nothing ruled in, nothing ruled out.' It will all be down to our local members being kept informed throughout the process of the review. The Gurn was there and made notes, to find out what Liz, Graham and Sandy said please tune in again this evening.

PS. Just chance or humour that placed MacLean Court as item 13 on the Agenda!

UPDATE: the discussion on item 13

Sandy and Graham spoke briefly but concisely welcoming the proposal for the review and calling for full consultation and research throughout the community on Day Care provision in Nairn. Their contributions were short but it was obvious that they had a desire to reflect the will of the community as best they could.

Liz made quite a long speech, she started:

' A carer was going to accompany me here today but unfortunately her mother has taken very ill and GP’s wanted to put her in hospital so she was unable to attend. She said she and her sister feel the stress of the proposal to close McLean Court Day Care has affected her mother’s health as it’s all her mother speaks about. The woman in question was one of the founder members of Nairn Senior Citizens Lunch Club 24 years ago, understands the service inside out and is most comfortable with MacLean Court

The support by the people of Nairn for this service is incredible and people were queuing up to sign the petition which stands at over 1500 plus letters of support, numerous e-mails and 40 signatures on an on-line petition. These include support from both community councils.

The GPs at Lodgehill have expressed the view that closing McLean Court would be atrocious and scandalous. One carer had a GP and consultant referral to McLean Court that has not been attended to since April last year

Nairn Community Care Forum chairperson personally supports the retention of the day care, and would be delighted for the forum to be involved in the consultation process

The Provost then made specific points.

1.1 The service is underused – we all know Nairn has the highest demographic percentage of aging population in the Highlands and the only way it is underused is by lack or referrals. Since the threatened closure I’ve referred 3 people to Brain Robertson who would benefit from this service and there are many more who receive homecare and are then left to sit in their homes until the next home care visit who would benefit.
There has been no consideration in this report about the unmet or unidentified needs in our community

1.2 Considering the client group and varying need – for a service to be effective it has to specify the client group. I would expect the people with higher levels of need to be directed to the Manor. People with moderate levels who attend McLean Court and are comfortable and satisfied with the service should continue at McLean Court and if the Service is to be for clients with lower level of needs it may not be necessary for improved washing facilities. If however it is felt that personal care is required then SW Capital programme is under spent by £143K and this could be utilised to make any necessary improvements to the facility.

1.6 The statement that tenants at McLean Court would like the day service removed is untrue. I spoke to all tenants on Friday and they all supported the retention of the day care.

Comments included: didn’t believe it for a minute, never heard of any complaints in 12 years, couldn’t think of a better place to put it, 100% for it, we get included in activities like Christmas Carols

2.3 goes on to explain how Grigor House would like to extend its day care from 3 to 5 days per week is this transferring more council services into the private sector?

We all know that the day care at Grigor house is for high dependency clients so the majority of clients at McLean Court day care could not access this service neither could they access the Alzheimer day care at the hospital as it is specifically for people with Alzheimer’s and would be highly unsuitable. As the founder member of the lunch club knows she couldn’t return there it is also not a viable option for the day care clients.

Under Conclusions – we know McLean Court day care is underused but it is through lack of Social Work accepting new clients not through lack of referral.

The worst statement in the whole report is in Para 3.2 ‘It is therefore proposed to defer consideration of the decision to cease provision of the service from McLean Court’ Is there no opportunity here to develop or enhance the service, perhaps be more specific about the client group and make suitable provision.

If as suggested in the report under 3.3 it is up to Ward members to agree a solution then the only option I would support is the retention, full utilisation and upgrading of the day care provision to meet current standards

McLean Court day care provides social care, respite provision and a life line to those who use it and hope to access it.

I move that instead of looking at ways to close it we consider its development and upgrading.'


There was also support from John Finnie, leader of the SNP group on the council. John has shown a lot of interest in MacLean Court and appeared in Nairn on at least two to collect signatures for the petition.

The Chair wound it up – ‘ Nothing ruled in – nothing ruled out she said.’ So there it is Gurnites, let's keep an eye on this review!

Exclusive: The shopping list of our leading citizen

Provost Liz has been suspicious for sometime that shopping in Nairn's one and only 'supermarket' can be an expensive experience. Here are the figures from a wee experiment she tried in comparing the price of a basket of 'bare essentials' in our one and only Somerfield and then looking at the same goods along the road in Forres at Lidl and Tesco. It just goes to show that Somerfield badly need serious competition.

And as far as the proposed town centre supermarket redevelopment plan goes, the Provost thinks it is time to give up the present plan and come up with something new. She told tonight's meeting of the River Community Council that Highland Council's inquiries to the Co-op as to their intention for the Somerfield store were being 'fobbed off'. Up to now it had seemed that the Trunk Roads Authority were holding things up but this even the Provost told the community councilt that it was infact Somerfield that had not submitted information to the Authority. She further told the meeting that the Co-op were not obliged to go ahead with the scheme.

It certainly looks like the whole project is going nowhere fast and the buildings that have been scheduled for demolition could be with us for a long time yet. Maybe they could be used for something if they are not likely to be knocked down in the near future.

Six-month reprieve for MacLean Court

The P& J reports:

A HIGHLAND day centre earmarked for closure has received a six-month stay of execution while its future is re-examined.
MacLean Court in Albert Street, Nairn, was due to shut as part of Highland Council budget cuts announced last month.
However, it emerged last night that the centre, which is used by 18 elderly people, is to remain open for another six months. Tomorrow, the council’s housing and social work committee will be asked to continue funding MacLean Court “until the users of the facility are consulted about future service provision and a review of support for older people in Nairn is concluded”.

Full story here.

Meanwhile Provost Liz has been highlighting the difficulties facing Nairn shoppers.

Over in the printed press the Nairnshire has news that some Nairn Academy pupils may soon be bussed to the old Cawdor School. A letter in the Nairnshire is also indicating that a single Community Council for Nairn may come about sooner rather than later and Iain Bain has a look at the Academy situation in his editorial. Only 40p buy it now!

A winter’s tale

It was one of those days that despite the welcome weather of yesterday reminded us that this was still winter. A clear early morning turned in sequence to horizontal snow, a gale of wind, and lashings of rain, all the season in one day. Only the longer, lighter time of year saved us from a truly gloomy Sunday as the late afternoon sun tried to cut through the heavy clouds.
It was not a day to wander far from the hearth other than to fill the coal bucket, and even then you had to choose your moment or wrap up warm for the two-minute exercise.
A need for an item for my tea necessitated a trip up the street. What had looked like a lull in the weather at the back of the house proved to be wrong by the time I stepped out of the front door. Wind whipped rain had me running for the shelter of the car. As the windscreen wipers cleared the torrent I noticed a sheet of paper had been jammed between the wiper and the screen and provided an annoying white blur. There was nothing for it but to leap back out into the wet and remove the object, this would have been easier had I switch off the wipers! Back inside the now damp car I read the paper, was it for car insurance, a garage, car valet maybe? All things car it was not but an advertisement for a new Nairn café – great.
I noted that all the cars in the street had enjoyed the advertisers attention, and whilst mine was readable (Just) I doubted theirs would be by later in the day. Why whoever had been charged with delivering the leaflets chose to target car windscreens rather than letterboxes I will probably never know, unless of course I dry mine out and take it to the new café and ask whilst claiming the free cup of coffee which the sodden sheet of paper offers!

Nairn Academy, should there be a public meeting?

A concerned parent as contacted the Gurn, this parent believes there should be a public meeting held in the town to discuss both the possible health risks that pupils and staff may face at the Academy and the disruption to the pupils' education. The parent believes that the meeting should also be open to primary school parents whose children will eventually go to the Academy and that Nairn's four councillors should be present to answer questions.

Meanwhile the £1.8 million that will be spent on Nairn Academy has raised envious eyebrows in the North and tough questions are being asked of Wick's local councillors. Read about it here. Provost Liz has already renewed her call for a new school but the Wick article demonstrates that Nairn will be fighting for funding against other communities that will consider themselves just as deserving. The whole Nairnshire community needs to get behind the call for a new Academy and perhaps a public meeting would be the best way forward.

........
Opinion Poll

What do you think? Do you feel that the Academy is a safe building? You can vote over on the Gurn on Sunday Opinion Poll - you'll find it in the side-bar on the right hand side at the top of the page