Week 46
Area Committee, comfort schemes, rats, the freeport, Provost Ronnie Watson House, and a survey ...
Area Committee
As I mentioned last week Nairnshire Area Committee met on Tuesday to discuss the costs incurred by the Council’s Parking Enforcement Team in operating the invitation to pay parking scheme and also a proposal to un-adopt the road leading to Ardersier port.
You can watch the whole meeting here on YouTube but the summary is that we agreed to the costs being charged to the Common Good but decided to defer a decision on un-adopting the road due to our worries about securing access. Officers have been asked to go away and investigate our options.
I also raised the issue of the “Permit Holders Only” parking signs at the harbour and the officer reported that the “Only” has now been covered up to make it a little clearer what is going on. So, as I’ve discussed here before, residents can park there at will … but it should discourage tourists.
Comfort schemes
Back in November at a previous Area Committee meeting we were discussing public toilets and I suggested we consider a comfort scheme for Nairn. This is where premises which already have toilets for customers or staff are invited to let the public use their toilets in return for a payment of £50 to £300 per month. These sort of schemes are already in use elsewhere in the Highlands and it could, in theory at least, be in place before the next tourist season. Nairn BID also promoted this idea to their members in their March newsletter.
I’ve since had an update from officers and the news on this is not very positive with various business tenants of the Common Good who were approached and who would be obvious people to provide toilet facilities as they tend to be in tourist areas have all either not replied or explicitly declined to take part.
If you do happen to know a business that would be interested in getting involved then I’d suggest they contact BID in the first instance.
Queenspark rats
I’ve talked before about the rat problems at Queenspark and, judging by my mailbox, this continues to be an issue. Council staff have to do more work here but but residents need to do their bit too to help keep homes rat free, in particular not leaving piles of rubbish in gardens or leaving food scraps out for "birds" as this provides nesting and food for the rats. Hopefully these actions, taken together, will help get this problem under control.
Freeport webcast
As I mentioned last week the Freeport held its first webinar on Wednesday night and you can now watch it here on Youtube. It provides a useful introduction to what they’re planning although it is, unsurprisingly, extremely upbeat about the whole thing.
Provost Ronnie Watson House
If you read the local press you will be aware that a complaint was made to the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman relating to the Council’s decision making regarding the allocation of Scottish Government Town Centre funding to Nairn which resulted in the building of Provost Ronnie Watson House, now home of Nairn CAB.
I’ve put the full Decision Notice online. It says (my emboldening):
Taking all of the above into account, the Council have not satisfied me that they followed the process set out by the EDI committee regarding the allocation of Scottish Government Town Centre Funding in Nairn. I consider this sufficient to amount to maladministration and therefore, on balance, I uphold this complaint.
I raised my concerns about aspects of this at Audit & Scrutiny Committee this week, as did other local councillors and I hope that the council has learned lessons from this process.
Customer service survey
The council is currently undertaking a survey on their customer service. It’s very clear to me from the feedback I’m receiving that there is work to do in this area so if you need to interact with the council I urge you to fill it in.