Year 3, Week 40
Traffic issues on the A96, road closures, MSP surgery, pumped storage scheme ...
Traffic issues on the A96
As you know the housing development at Delnies is now going full blast and the temporary traffic lights on the A96 are causing hold ups, especially at peak times.
Tuesday night was particularly bad when someone else (I suspect BT/Openreach) put in four way temporary traffic lights at the A96/Manse Road/Waverley Road junction. This is the second time they’ve done this. It was bad last time they did it (on 16th January) but this time it was worse as the queue for those lights then backed up far enough to interact with the queues at Delnies causing gridlock.
The A96 is a trunk road, so management is down to Transport Scotland and their agent Amey, not Highland Council, but I’ve been speaking to various people this week and in particular the developers at Delnies over my concerns that they weren’t doing active management of the lights: it needs different timing for the morning and evening rush hours.
They tell me that the traffic management system is being manned 24/7 in compliance with Amey regulations in an effort to avoid imbalances but they admitted during peak periods this could be improved, and they have passed on that feedback to the team managing the lights.
They also expect that within the next three weeks the traffic management system will only be in operation from 9:30am to 3:30pm, which should makes things a lot better as, in my experience at least, outside peak hours you don’t have to wait long and get through on the first cycle after you join the queue.
The first meeting of the community liaison group, which the developers had to set up as part of the conditions imposed by Highland Council, is due to meet very soon now so I will be raising these issues again there and I will continue to monitor how things are going, not least as I’m driving into Inverness several days each week on council business.
Road closures
Meanwhile the march of road closures continues unabated. These are all for BT/Openreach works and diversions will be in place.
C1167 & U3023 roads near Arr Wood / Fornighty
Beginning on 10th February. Local access will be maintained.
C1169 road near the Daltulich Bridge and Regulas
This one is right on the edge of the Highland Council area and is almost in Moray. It’s closed 17th to 19th February. Emergency access will be maintained.
Rose Street, Nairn
Beginning on 20th February. Emergency and pedestrian access will be maintained.
C1173 road near Belivat
Beginning on 24th February. Local and emergency access will be maintained.
MSP Surgery
Your regional MSP Emma Roddick is holding a surgery in Nairn on Saturday, 15th February as the last of a string of surgeries in the area. Details below.
Remember that you can always contact Emma at any time using the same details.
Pumped storage scheme
As you’ve probably gathered from my occasional references a lot of my time as a councillor is spent on more general council business. One of my bigger roles is that I’m now chair of the South Planning Applications Committee and this week we had a significant application come to us which I think is worth a mention.
This is for a pumped storage hydroelectric scheme which is another way of storing surplus electricity rather than putting it into batteries. So essentially they use surplus electricity to pump water up hill and then convert that back into electricity at peak times by running it back down hill.
This scheme is off the A86, halfway between Newtonmore and Spean Bridge to the south east of Loch Laggan. They’re using Lochan na h-Earba (currently a twin loch) as the lower body of water and Loch a’ Bhealaich Leamhain as the higher one.
If you want to see the details there’s a long report here. Here’s a map showing the plan:
They’re putting dams at each end of Lochan na h-Earba so it will then become a single loch and they’ve also putting a bigger dam at the top to make Loch a’ Bhealaich Leamhain, a glacial corrie lochan, a lot deeper.
This scheme will have a maximum output of 800MW and a generation energy storage capacity of up to 40GWh, so if the upper loch is full at the start it could output 800MW for just over two days before it was exhausted.
If it goes ahead then this will be the highest capacity pumped storage scheme in the UK overtaking the current biggest which is Dinorwig with a capacity of only 9.1GWh (although it has a higher maximum output of 1,728MW).
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted (the last is not on our ward but I thought people might find it interesting):
24/05266/FUL - 5 Union Street, Nairn, IV12 4PS - Installation of door and windows
25/00097/FUL - Land 140M NW Of, Milton Of Kilravock Farm, Cawdor - Erection of poultry unit
25/00138/FUL - 5 Sandown Road, Nairn, IV12 5NW - Erection of extension, dormer and porch
24/05253/FUL - Land 870M NE Of Norbord Europe Ltd, Dalcross - Construction of a rail sidings yard including new rail sidings and connection to the main line, associated gantry crane (and/or reach-stackers), areas of hard standing, access road, vehicle parking, fencing, drainage, landscaping and associated infrastructure works and facilities
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.