Have your Say

 

Proposal to move Nairn Library from High Street  to the new Nairn Academy at Duncan Drive 

This online consultation by Highland Council  is only open from 7th till 25th March 

The form should be saved to your computer and submitted once completed  by emailing  to nairn.library@highlifehighland.com  or ( for the less computer literate)

printed off to fill in by hand and handed in to the Library before the 25th March deadline

 

Face to face consultation will run only for one week from 7th to 11th March at Nairn Library in High St with staff available to answer questions

 

Nairn River Community Council ( along with our colleagues at Nairn West and Suburban CC and NICE Nairn’s Community Development Trust)  are of the view that planning of such important community facilities as libraries and schools should be part of a joined up community led ‘Local Place Plan’  and not progressed ‘in isolation’ as seems to be the case with current  New Nairn Academy plans.   

There are numerous alternative options for the future of Nairn’s Library to be explored before such an important decision is made, and many existing buildings in Nairn with potential to be restored or improved for greater ‘community use’. 

Nairn River CC have been talking to our colleagues in Wick who had a new high school completed in 2017  with the local library relocated on campus

There is much to learn from their experiences,  which have not all been positive.

A full range of options should be considered so that we get things right for Nairn. 

 

 Current Planning Applications – Highland Council 

this  is the online ‘portal’ where you can find all live planning applications.

Nairn River CC is in Nairn and Cawdor Ward (Ward 18) and covered by Highland Council’s South Planning Applications Committee (SPAC).

 

The latest application with major implications for Nairn is for 650 homes to be built by Springfield as part of a mixed development, in the area between Sainsbury’s and  Granny Barbour’s Road.  Here is the link 

More information on the pre planning public consultation which Springfield has launched is here with more detailed maps.   This is not yet a full Planning Application but one is currently being prepared by Springfield, and public feedback will help to shape it.

 

There are hundreds of planning applications made in  Nairn River CC patch every year. 

We do not comment on all of them as a ‘Statutory Consultee’ , only if local residents or our members raise concerns at local impacts of a proposal. 

In the last two years we have made submissions on a number of planning applications to the South Planning Applications Committee  (SPAC)  including: 

 

Manor Flats (FIT Homes) Cawdor Road – We objected to the first application due to plans to remove mature trees and noisy location. Plans were changed to spare trees. We objected to  revised application due to inadequate noise mitigation and potential economic impact on key local employer(Gordon’s Sawmill) if residents complained about noise.

Plans were rejected by SPAC, but Albyn Housing won an appeal to Scottish Government.   

 

3 storey CAB and flats in King Street town centre  We objected to revised plans for a ‘newbuild’ on a new site (originally for regeneration of Old Social Work Building/former Police Station) due to incompatibility with agreed Nairn Town Centre Plan priorities, negative impact of such a large building on heritage landscape, no disabled access to flats, loss of town centre civic space and parking, and  use of regeneration funds for a ‘newbuild’. 

Plans were passed by SPAC

 

We presented a neutral submission to the original application due to divided public opinion. We supported the revised ‘scaled down’ application

Plans were passed by SPAC

 

A new Local Development Plan is currently being prepared by Highland Council for the Inner Moray Firth area. This will replace the 2015 edition and once published in the next year or two, will be in place for the next 10 years.  Public responses to the latest consultation phase affecting Nairn below

 

Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan – Main Issues Report public consultation 

 

The consultation is now closed but all public responses( Highland wide)  can be found here

24 public Comments on  the proposed Plan for Nairn ( Main Settlement No 26 identified as a ‘High Growth Settlement’ ) are here.  

Since none of these public submissions are in agreement with the proposed Plan for Nairn,  it is clear that more work with local communities is needed to get this new Local Development Plan right.

 

Nairn’s two community councils have been pushing for some time for a Local Place Plan to be developed, led by the local community, as prescribed in the new Scottish Planning Framework. This should be a priority action to identify what local people want, before the  Local Development Plan for the Inner Moray Firth Area( IMFLDP) is finalised  for the next 10 years. 

With regard to the recent public consultation on the IMFLDP,  Nairn Rive CC have fed back to Highland Council that the online format was not user friendly as it required submission of separate comments to relevant sections of a Report hundreds of pages long. 

This technically complex task which made ‘ having a say’  inaccessible to most of the people a new Plan will affect, and due to COVID there have been no public consultation events to allow people any face to face dialogue with Highland Council officers. 

 

This closed in May but has not reported yet 

Proposals for Nairn  to improve COVID related ‘social distancing’ (restricting High Street parking and widening pavements)  were not thought necessary after a High Street ‘walkabout’ in Summer 2020  by THC officers and community representatives from Nairn Community Councils and Nairn BID.

Alternative solutions were proposed as a better use of available SUSTRANS funding,  to encourage active travel by signposting local cycle routes to tie in in with other local partner initiatives(eg Nairn BID).  A year on this has yet to be implemented.

 

Nairn River CC  are keen to build dialogue with SUSTRANS (who manage the Scottish Cycle Network) to find out more about the kind of active travel solutions they can fund to suit Nairn’s needs.

 

Sandown Lands (Nairn Common Good Asset) – proposed disposal  

A consultation took place in Spring 2021 on the proposed sale by Highland Council of one of Nairn’s largest Common Good assets’ Sandown Lands to the west of the town. 

A summary of public responses can be found here  which includes submissions from Nairn River CC, Nairn West and Suburban CC  and many Nairn residents.  98 responses were received with 85 contributors lodging objections against the proposed ‘disposal’, an additional 10 submitting points both for and against and only 3 comments entirely in support.  You can also read more on Nairn West  and Suburban CC website and the Gurn. 

 

A decision on this is expected by the Nairnshire Area Committee of Highland Council in September 2021. If Nairn’s local Councillors make a recommendation to dispose of this land it will  be tabled for approval by the full Highland Council as Common Good Trustees for Nairn before an application could be made to the Sheriff Court for sale of ‘inalienable’ land.  We hope the proposal will be rejected by our 4 local Councillors at the next Nairnshire Area Committee as the balance of local community opinion is clearly against sale of this asset at this time.

 

Proposed Lochloy Active Travel Crossing 

Highland Council, in partnership with Sustrans, opened consultation on 16th July 2021 on a proposed link between the Lochloy area of Nairn and the A96 retail park and invited members of the public to comment on some initial concept designs.  In response to a request by NRCC the deadline for public responses has been postponed from 30 July till 27th August.   

You can see the preliminary designs below.

We are told these are simply  initial ideas to give some idea of scale and location.

http://www.highland.gov.uk

Proposal / Option 1 

 

 

 

 

 

Proposal / Option 2 –

 

 

 

Proposal / Option 3 –

 

PDU.DT2@highland.gov.uk  .

You may also copy your views to info.nrivercc@gmail.com  if you wish us to  reflect them  in the Nairn River Community Council response.

After organising an emergency community meeting on 28th July Nairn River CC has been supporting local residents to circulate a survey on these proposals round all households in Lochloy,  Kingsteps and Merryton.  Findings from this should be ready to share with Highland Council and SUSTRANS by the end of August. 

  

• why they approved investment in parking infrastructure without community input
• how much will be left for Nairn Common Good Fund from charging income already collected from this ‘pilot’  once running and set up costs are covered 
• how this can be used to benefit the people of Nairn, and how this will be decided.
• how Nairn people will be consulted on this before any more decisions are made.

Latest information on this is on our blog -with  answers to 20 questions we asked  Highland Council and  discussion on related CCTV matters. 

More information on our dialogue with Highland Council on this topic is on our  blog

A note on Nairn’s Common Good Assets  ‘for the benefit of the citizens of the burgh’

Nairn’s Common Good Assets are lands and property given to the town in the past with an obligation that they be ‘managed for the  benefit of the citizens of the burgh of Nairn’ .

You can find more information on Common Good here on the Scottish Land Commission website,  and more on local authority duties in relation to Common Good property under the Community Empowerment Act 2015 here 

 Section 104 ‘requires the local authority to consult with the local community when it is planning to dispose of common good property, or change its use. The local authority must publish details of the proposed disposal or change of use of common good property, and notify and invite representations from community councils and community bodies.’

It is also a  legal requirement under the 2015 Community Empowerment Act, for local authorities in Scotland to publish a list of the land and property they are entrusted to look after for the benefit of local people.   

You can find Nairn’s Common Good Asset Register on Highland Council’s website.         This is a ‘live document’ which continues to be updated based on local historical research.