Nairn's Hydro Eelectric shop to close

An iconic store on the High Street is to close as part of the SSE company's decision to shut its remaining 37 shops in Scotland. The company states in a press release:

"SSE has today announced it is taking the difficult decision to close its 37 remaining Scottish Hydro Electric shops in Scotland, along with its associated online shop.

The retail shops sell electrical and white goods and are predominantly sited across the north of the country. 

SSE has entered into consultation with its 119 employees affected by the planned closures and will discuss possible redeployment within the SSE plc group. It aims to avoid redundancies wherever possible, although if this is unavoidable, enhanced terms will be offered to affected employees during the consultation process. 

Stephen Forbes, SSE Director of Domestic Retail, said changing shopping habits and more customer choice mean the shops have now been loss-making for a number of years.

He said: “Customers’ shopping habits have changed considerably since these shops were first opened with more and more people shopping online, especially for larger electrical items.

“We know some of these shops have been on local high streets for a long time so we did not take this decision lightly but footfall and sales have reduced considerably and there is, unfortunately, no realistic prospect of that long-term trend reversing.

“Our priority is to ensure our colleagues are fully supported during this time and we will work to redeploy staff within the SSE group where possible.”

All 37 shops and the online shop are expected to be closed by the 15th of May.

SSE employs around 6,000 people across Scotland many of which are based across the north of the country. Each year SSE contributes more than £1bn to the Scottish economy."

Sundancer license board application approved

The Sundancer licence application was approved yesterday at the Highland Licensing Board meeting in Inverness. The discussion on the application can be seen on this Highlannd Council webcast here - if you go to that page scroll down to item 8.1 in the right hand side bar and click on that. 

Holyrood election 2016 Fergus in town

Came across Fergus in the High Street this morning. Are you one of the contestants in the Holyrood election this time round? Send the Gurn pictures of your activities in Nairn and we will be delighted to publish. 

Police activity on Nairn beach this morning

Part of the West Beach between the Golf View and the Swimming Pool was cordoned off by police this morning. The Fire Brigade were also in attendance. The scene was captured by a local photograper, images can be seen here.  

Just after one o' clock media outlets were reporting that a body had been found on the beach. 

A Century of Nairn Town and County 1847 - 1948 Slideshow by Jim Leslie

Regular readers will have noticed that we recently linked to the Historical Hospitals site and an article about hospitals in Nairn. Dr Adrian Baker read that article and has kindly forwarded us a copy of a presentation made by Jim Leslie at the time of the opening of the new hospital in 2010 it has quite a bit more information and might be of further interest to our readers. If you are unable to  see the images in the presentation below (use the right hand side bar) a copy is also available online here. 

The Slideshow is the work of Jim Leslie His  book the Hospitals of Nairn is on sale in Strachan's newsagents. Jim has a website "The History of Nairn Hospitals" which can be viewed here. 

A petition to stop the spending of £500,000 on a metal cladding for Inverness Museum passes 3,000 signatures

Regular readers may recall a post earlier this month we drew attention to the proposal to spend a considerable sum of money cladding the Inverness museum and compared the fortunes of Nairn Museum to the facility in the Highland Capital. That article is here. 

Since then a petition has been started by Inverness businessman Donald MacKenzie. His petition states:

"Stop Highland Council wasting cash cladding ugly museum to make it a gold-clad ugly museum."

There appears to be considerable momentum building behind this petition and that would indicate it is not only folk in Nairn that think the money could be better spent on other things. The petition is available here and has now been signed by over 3,000 people. 

Hospitals in Nairn - a bit of history

We came across a very interesting page on a site entitled "Historic Hospitals" yesterday. It has some very interesting information worthy of a browse if you have a moment or two - more here. 

Nairn River Community Council branch out onto social media

NRCC have had a website for some time but now in an effort  to research issues the community think important they are branching out onto social media. They state on their brand new Facebook page:

"The main purpose of the Nairn River Community Council is to find out what residents' views are, and represent them to the Highland Council, and other public authorities, and private agencies, in order to have action taken on matters of interest or concern to the community.

In order to do this effectively, we need to know what your views are, what matters do you want the Community Council to raise on your behalf. This page is one of the ways we are hoping to achieve this, other mechanisms will be set up in due course."

More here

Free online journalism course

There is a phrase out there "we are the media now" and in a way that is right, many news stories are broken by citizens on the likes of Facebook and Twitter and you only have to look at the myriad of sites and social media pages in  Nairn cybersphere to see that, apart from the affectionate place we still all have for the The Leopold Street Thunderer, it is on line that so many of us get our information these days. 

A free online course run by Strathclyde University starting next week is entitled "Introduction to Journalism" and might be just the thing for one or two people in Nairn that create content for local websites or social media pages. 

The site hosting the course states:

"This free online course is aimed at those curious about journalism and looking to gain a better understanding of what the subject entails. Run by a team of internationally-renowned scholars and journalism practitioners at the University of Strathclyde, it gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the professional world of reporters and editors.

The course contains six topics - what makes a good news story; writing news; writing features; opinion writing; politics and journalism; and investigative journalism - and explores these in relation to a case study running throughout the six weeks. Although the scenario is entirely fictitious, participants will engage in tasks and discussions that reflect real-life situations in journalism."

More information here. 

Any community groups with ideas for encouraging cycling that might meet the criteria for Cycling Scotland grants?

"Communities can apply for grants of up to £5,000 to deliver local cycling projects. The purpose of the Cycle Friendly and Sustainable Communities Fund (CFSCF) is to support groups to encourage cycling in their community and to deliver a sustainable cycling project that will encourage more people to travel by bike.

This Transport Scotland funded grant scheme enables community groups to support and deliver projects with an overall aim to increase the number of local journeys by bike. Reducing single occupancy car use and increasing active travel options will result in reduced local transport related carbon emissions and increased health and wellbeing of the community."

More on the Cycling Scotland website here. 

Cycling Scotland also have another grant scheme "Cycle Friendly Community Award" which offers grants of up to £20K. More here.