Week 25

Blanket 20mph speed limits, and my first 100 subscribers ...

20mph Speed Limits

I’m a little late this week as I’ve been waiting to be in a position to tell you some news which I knew was imminent. The news is that Transport Scotland has invited Highland Council to be a pilot local authority for the National 20mph Implementation Strategy.

This means that many communities across Highland will probably be getting a blanket 20mph speed limit. That includes Nairn (with the possible exception of the A96 although I’m hoping we might get that included too) and also a lot of other communities in the ward like Cawdor, Auldearn, Fornighty, Clunas, and Ferness (I do have a complete list if you’re interested in any other community in the ward, or indeed anywhere else in Highland).

This is why we’ve had traffic counters on roads all over the area for the last few weeks as assessments are being carried out to see which communities meet the Scottish Government’s New Place criteria. Only those meeting this criteria will be considered for the 20mph roll out.

If it goes ahead then the plan is for this to be in place by next summer and, as early adopters, all costs of the roll out to the council will be fully funded by the Scottish Government through Transport Scotland.

You can read more about this on the Highland Council’s press release.

This Blog and Mailing List

I did promise during my election campaign that I would keep people in the ward informed as to what was going on with Highland Council as I always felt that our last four councillors made a mistake by not doing that. The council is responsible for a lot of the decisions that affect your life so I think it’s important that you know what they’re up to and I and my fellow councillors are up to to help shape that. My principle way of doing that has been via this blog and its associated mailing list.

I was keen to offer email as a route for getting the word out rather than simply relying on posting to social media, as not everyone uses social media like Facebook or Twitter but everyone on the Internet has an email address. This is why I chose Substack and last week we passed 100 subscribers to the mailing list for this blog.

There are over 10,000 electors in the ward and perhaps 5,000 households, so that’s only one household in 50 that I’m reaching so far via email but it’s also true that the posts are read by more people as some read it via the links which I post to Facebook and Twitter whenever I send out an email.

Anyway, there’s still a long way to go, but we’re getting there. And please let your friends know about the blog. Just tell them to search for paul.nairn.scot