Year 2, Week 31
Nairn Academy, the wider school estate, the bypass, 20mph, the budget, harbour toilets ...
Nairn Academy
I chaired a very positive meeting of the stakeholder group for the new academy this week. Balfour Beatty, who are leading on the project, are pushing ahead at pace. The planning application has been submitted to the council and will be available to view online shortly.
We were shown a slide with their proposed access to the new build site and I took a photo which you can see below. Apologies for the poor quality of the image.
This is orientated looking south with Duncan Drive running up the left side of the map and the railway line at the top. You can see marked in light blue the temporary road they are proposing to build on the northern edge of the school campus to allow vehicles to enter the site without compromising the safely of teachers and pupils.
The wider school estate
While I’m talking about the new academy I should mention the stories you may have seen in the local press that a councillor from Beauly is bringing a motion to full council this Thursday calling on us to “establish a School Emergency Action Plan to address the shortcomings in Highland’s school estate”.
She claims she’s “not wanting political point scoring” but sadly this is precisely what she is doing as the council administration is all too aware of the problems with the school estate and indeed, at the risk of doing some political point scoring back, one the reasons we’re finding it so hard is that her government is reducing the block grant from Westminster for capital by 6.67% next year. That's not helping us at all …
A96 dualling and Nairn bypass
As I said to a resident who wrote to me about the bypass this week this is a Scottish Government decision but I and my SNP council colleagues continue to press for it to happen whenever we can.
In that regard HITRANS, the Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership of which Highland Council is a part along with other councils across the Highlands and Islands region, issued a press release this week about A96 dualling and various bypasses this week which was picked up by a variety of publications including The Highland Times and The Inverness Courier.
I represented the council at the last HITRANS meeting and so I’m quoted thus:
The dualling of the A96 between Inverness and just east of Nairn will be a huge boost for our area, not least in allowing for the growth of our prospering area but also removing congestion in the town.
On its own it’s just one more news story, but I like to think that we are keeping up the pressure for some action on this.
20mph consultation
I thought the council had already consulted on this, and indeed I asked you to mail them and comment some time ago, but the council has now launched a formal consultation about which you can find details here.
I am still getting emails from residents about this and, overwhelmingly, people want more roads to have 20mph limits and the survey has the option to mark roads you would like to be reduced to 20mph.
I marked the A939 Grantown Road through Nairn - I’d encourage you to do so too.
Council budget
A brief reminder that officers, when making their recommendations to us on next year’s budget, are using the results from the budget simulator and also the survey, both of which I have mentioned here before and which a lot of people have tried and it certainly changed my view of some things. So if you’ve not tried one or both already can I encourage you to do so but you will have to make some hard decisions in the simulator to balance the budget.
Harbour Street toilets
We had a ward business meeting on Wednesday where we were given an update of the feasibility study for restoring toilet facilities at the harbour. This project is still in the early stages, and it will require substantial funding, but we can now at least see a path forward. I will have more to say about this later as a paper will probably be coming to the next Nairnshire Area Committee.
Planning Applications
The following new applications were logged this week:
23/04853/FUL - Northview, Wester Lochloy, Nairn, IV12 5LE - Retention of chalet for use as annexe and short term letting
23/05341/FUL - Land 55M SE Of Roundall Wood, Auldearn - Erection of house
23/05496/FUL - 3 Achareidh Steading, Wyvis Drive, Nairn, IV12 4UB - Erection of extension
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.