Welcome back!

Nairn River Community Council are pleased to welcome you to our new website.

It is still a work in progress – so bear with us!

We welcome your feedback if there is any information you would like to see here to keep local residents informed and involved in local development and service planning.

You will find here information about

WHAT your community council does

WHO your local community councillors are

WHY you should read our minutes and blog to keep up with current local concerns for the Nairn River community

WHAT we have been doing to tackle these and make sure local views are taken on board in any decisions being made for Nairn by local authorities.

WHEN we hold our business meetings in public,

HOW you can have your say as a local resident in local and national consultations.

We are pleased to say that, after a difficult period of internal strife we are now back to focussing 100% on serving Nairn River residents as a unified community council.

We have just coopted two new community councillors with great experience and skills, and since our June AGM our volunteers have spent a busy summer, supporting residents with a survey of Lochloy, Merryton and Kingsteps about the proposed Lochloy active travel crossing, keeping tabs on ‘voluntary’ parking charges at the Links and other Common Good car parks and getting this website ready for you.

If you would like to become a community councillor, we have a number of vacancies to fill for adults and two under 18 members. Why not come along to our public meetings and learn more about what we do and the structures within which we operate as a public body.

We are looking for energetic and enthusiastic volunteers willing to put personal interests aside, and work reliably with others for this community as part of a team. Initial training will be provided and you will need to do some background reading between meetings to keep up with the wide range of public policy matters which come our way, so that you can make fully informed decisions as a community councillor. You should be able to engage respectfully with colleagues and the wider community and listen impartially to diverse views and opinions of local residents, observing confidentiality as required.

You may also be required to represent the community council at meetings and in other public settings and be able to accurately summarise and communicate information about local matters to others, both in writing and face to face.

If you’d like to put your name forward as a community councillor – please contact us.

Also get in touch if you have any concerns or questions about issues affecting your neighbourhood which you would like us to help resolve with Highland Council or other public authorities who provide services and make decisions for Nairn.

Our next online meetings, open to you to join

NRCC will hold its next scheduled Ordinary Meeting in public on Zoom on Wednesday 15th September 2021, from 7.30 pm.  We will post the agenda here a week in advance.

Other scheduled meeting dates for 2021 are here 

If you would like to register to attend please send an email to: nrcc.online@outlook.com   with your name and postcode. We  will send you an invitation to join the meeting with the zoom link nearer to the meeting date.

(Invitations are normally issued within 24 hours before the meeting to maintain security)

We cannot guarantee to process meeting registrations after 6 pm on the day of the meeting

It is important for meeting security that you can be identified by the name you provide when you join and that you do not share the link with anyone else who has not registered.

 

Special Meeting

The proportion of NRCC members requesting a Special Meeting has reached the proportion (50%) required to hold one. The purpose of the meeting is to review the way in which NRCC conducts its business and decide how we move forward constructively in the future with regards to:
Sub groups
Governance for members and office bearers. 
Communications 
The secretary is required to arrange a meeting, giving the public at least 7 days notice. This has been arranged to be held at 7pm next Monday, 1st March. The Zoom link has been created using a paid account, so there will be no break in proceedings.
Topic: NRCC Special Meeting
Time: Mar 1, 2021 07:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83401588866?pwd=RXQzdERTdlBGOGtSTG1ucEI0MExXQT09

Meeting ID: 834 0158 8866
Passcode: 123123 

Details of our meeting on 10th February 2021

NRCC is to have its next ordinary meeting on-line via zoom on Wednesday 10th February, starting at 7pm.

You can join us by clicking this link (or copy and paste it into your browser search box at the top of the page):

https://us04web.zoom.us/j/77897877229?pwd=VFlpbEdUSWtZTHRRNkdUVlBiR3Jmdz09

The papers currently available for you to read are:

Agenda for meeting

Application for funding a Trekker

Planning Tracker

Correspondence Report

Correspondence Log

As further papers become available we\’ll add them on this page. Look forward to seeing you next week.

Our next meeting

NRCC\’s next meeting will be on zoom on 10th February 2021 at 7.30 pm. We will publish the link here and on social media about a week before. Meantime, if there are issues you would like NRCC to look at do let us know by emailing secretary@nairnrivercc.org. We can\’t promise to include it on the agenda immediately but we will respond as soon as we can.

What\’s Next for NRCC?

At our AGM on 13th January four members of the community council were elected as office bearers:
Hamish Bain, Chair
Peter Gibson, Deputy Chair
Veronica MacKinnon, Treasurer
Simon Noble, Secretary
There is much to do, particularly to organise how we represent our community, and how we communicate with you. We are currently exploring how we might develop our website so keep an eye out for changes here quite soon. 

Nairn Common Good consultation – Nairn Links Tearoom and Store

Public consultation is now open till 06 January 2021 – on proposals to dispose of two Nairn Common Good Assets 

1.the Links Tearoom  – new 30 year lease arrangement proposed  

2. the \’Store\’ former kiosk/shop on Links – proposed for demolition and landscaping (retain power supply)

These two properties are part of the Links which is a  Common Good Asset gifted to the people of  the Burgh of Nairn as part of its Royal Charter in 1586

A 12 week consultation period is required for any changes of use or disposals to Common Good Assets and all  residents of the former Royal Burgh of Nairn are entitled to have a say in these  proposals

Any changes or disposal to Common Good Assets such as these which are \’inalienable\’  will also require an application for formal consent from the Sheriff Court

Details of the consultation are below

Links Tearoom and Store – Common Good public consultation

Nairn River Community Council will be discussing a response with members and will post it here in due course.   For now Office Bearers are generally supportive of a longer lease to permit the current lease holder to invest in improvements to the Tearoom, but are open to public suggestions for alternative uses for the \’Store\’ rather than complete demolition and we will be seeking to clarify what is meant by proposed \’landscaping\’ if the building is removed

Please submit written representations to:-

Email: commongood@highland.gov.uk

Post: Sara Murdoch, Highland Council, Headquarters, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness, IV3 5NX.


If you would also like to share comments or suggestions with Nairn River CC on this matter please post them below 

Nairn River CC Statutory Consultee submission re Cawdor House/Lavender Cafe ‘change of use’ Application

Nairn River Community Council have recently submitted a Statutory Consultee comment to the Planning portal, regarding a retrospective change of use Application by Cawdor House B and B, Cawdor Street, Nairn, who have been operating an outdoor cafe since July 2020.

This Application has attracted diverse public comments and strong views on either side.

To help us prepare a fair and balanced submission, two Nairn River CC Office Bearers visited the Applicant, and two of their Cawdor St neighbours, to see the location for ourselves, and to listen to local concerns about the new cafe operation.  We also discussed with Cawdor House proprietors some possible ways to address these concerns.

We then shared our findings with NRCC members and after securing majority agreement, posted a neutral submission( neither Object or Support) , which presented several suggestions for  Planners to consider, re ‘mitigating measures’ to reduce nuisance to neighbours.

Information about the original Cawdor House change of use Application and  public comments can be found on the Highland Council Planning Portal.  

Due to the volume of public comments, it was expected that  this Application would go before the South Planning Applications Committee(SPAC) for scrutiny, rather than being delegated to Planning Officers for decision.  In the event the application was withdrawn in November  2020.  A new ‘scaled down’ application was submitted in December 2020 to the SPAC, which our members voted to Support,   and was passed on 27th April 2021. 

More information here on the Highland Council Planning Portal