Week 40
Joint surgery, taxi price rises, prepayment meters, interviews, and battery storage
Joint surgery
Your regional MSP Emma Roddick and I are holding a joint surgery this coming Wednesday, 15th February from 1:30pm to 3pm in the Music Room at the Community Centre.
So if you’ve got anything you would like our help with, and especially if it’s something with both a Highland Council and a Scottish Government connection, then feel free to pop along.
Taxi price rises
With effect from Monday Highland Council has raised the maximum fares which taxis can charge by 20%. At least one local taxi firm has implied on social media that this rise is somehow Highland Council’s fault and that you should therefore address any complaints to the council.
I sit on the Licensing Committee that decided those rises so I should perhaps point out that these rises, and bringing them in early, was done at the request of many taxi drivers and in the consultation that was done there was clear support for this move.
As I said above these are the maximum fares taxi companies can charge. Any company could choose to charge lower fares so please don't blame Highland Council for the decisions that taxi firms are making, for entirely understandable reasons, to increase fares now that they are allowed to.
Prepayment meters
I’ve been asked to pass on the message from Advice Direct Scotland that around one in five households with prepayment gas and electricity meters have not redeemed their energy rebate vouchers. If this affects you then please do make sure you’re not not missing out on the vouchers.
Interviews
Interviews with me were broadcast twice this week. On Monday morning BBC Radio Scotland broadcast an interview with me about speeding in Cawdor and, especially, Auldearn. I actually recorded this last week on the back of my recent post about speeding in Auldearn.
That was then picked up by STV so I got to do my first ever TV interview on Monday morning while on my way to a meeting at Nairn Academy to discuss plans for the new school. I was filmed standing alongside the A96 at Duncan Drive and I’m told that went out on STV on Monday evening, not that I saw it as I don’t have a TV licence.
Battery storage at Househill
This week’s South Planning Applications Committee approved plans for a battery energy storage facility at Househill which I’ve written about here before.
Battery storage units are now being constructed across Scotland and I welcome this. It's criminal that we are currently having to "feather" wind turbines when they're producing more electricity than can be exported to England. These storage units allow us to get the maximum possible electricity from wind which helps reduce our country's CO₂ emissions.
We had no objections to this application apart from Nairn River Community Council (NRCC) and the planning officer addressed all of their concerns in his report.
NRCC are now telling the press that local residents also objected to this application. It's regrettable, if that is the case, that NRCC didn't advise residents to subject their objections to Highland Council as no objections were received other than from NRCC and indeed I commented on that at the planning meeting as it was one of the reasons I felt happy to propose that we grant the application.