You may recall that Nairn River Community Council submitted a Participation Request to Highland Council at the start of May, following procedures laid out in the Community Empowerment Act.
NRCC Participation Request May 18
We have just heard this week that this request has been turned down by Highland Council, as not constituting a valid Participation Request, apparently because we did not specify
‘a single outcome’ for our local area which we felt could be improved by our involvement, or specify precisely what improvement we wanted to see.
Instead we chose to submit a ‘global’ request covering all outcomes included in the ‘Highland Outcomes Improvement Plan’.
We proposed that consulting with and engaging local communities better in local decision making on community planning was likely to improve all local outcomes, not just a one.
The response we received is here
NRCC Participation Request Response from HC June18
Despite this refusal you will see that we have been offered an opportunity for NRCC Chair and Secretary to join the Chairs and Secretaries of the other 4 Nairn and Nairnshire Community Councils at a meeting with local Community Planning Partners after the summer break. This is intended to
‘ clarify roles and responsibilities and discuss the best way forward for all parties to work together to improve outcomes for Nairn and Nairnshire and its residents’
We hope this will signal more constructive collaboration with the Nairn and Nairnshire Community Partnership. So far Nairnshire’s 5 Community Councils have not had a single seat or voice at this Community Planning table. Although members have attended meetings as members of the public, we are not sent meeting papers and not permitted to speak.
When the Partnership was first set up, the omission of Community Councils was challenged, and one seat was offered to be shared among 6 Nairnshire CC’s. This was not taken up as not practicable to share for a group which only meets 4 times a year.
Nairn River Community Council 