Year 2, Week 2
Nairn Academy, Auldearn speeding proposals, Nairnshire demographics, CCTV ...
Nairn Academy
As I’m sure you know we badly need a new Nairn Academy and by the time I was elected Highland Council was already well down the road of providing that having successfully bid for funding from the Scottish Government via something called the Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP).
Plans for the Academy, and for a primary school at Broadford on Skye, won funding in the second round (aka LEIP2).
As part of the LEIP2 funding Highland Council had to complete Nairn Academy by the end of 2025 so timescales were tight, but it seemed more than possible and ambitious and exciting plans were shown to everyone and we seemed to be forging ahead.
And then we got to LEIP3. In the third round in October 2022 Highland Council submitted a funding bid for five new school buildings:
Replacement buildings for Beauly, Dunvegan and Park Primary Schools;
A new building on a new site in Dingwall for St Clement’s School;
A new building for a new Primary School at Tornagrain.
We should have heard whether the bid was successful by the end of 2022. We’re now in late May 2023 and we’ve still heard nothing.
This has thrown the Council’s plans into some disarray. Due to the delay in the LEIP funding announcement, the Council is having to work to a one-year capital programme for 2023/24 and to continue with design and planning work on all the major school projects included in the programme approved back in December 2021. So that includes Nairn Academy and the Council is keen to stress that no projects have been dropped from the current programme. You can read the full press release here.
A letter from the Chief Executive has also been sent to the Nairn Academy Stake-holder Group. I think that’s effectively in the public domain so I’ve put a copy of that online here. It largely says what’s in the press release but it concludes:
Individual briefings containing specific detailed information on the status of each project will be issued to all Stakeholder Groups within one week of the date of this letter. If you have any particular deadlines, such as an upcoming Parent Council meeting, then please let us know and we will ensure that you receive the update in time.
I wrote back pointing out that Nairn Academy Parent Council were indeed meeting on Monday (22nd May) but as yet I’ve not seen that individual briefing. Let’s hope it is sent to the Stakeholder Group during the day tomorrow as this will no doubt be discussed at both the Parent Council and at Nairn West & Suburban Community Council which also meets on Monday night.
So where does all of this leave us? Well I remain very concerned about these delays, and have been for some time and I know I’m not alone. Along with my colleague Emma Roddick MSP we have been working to press the Scottish Government on this and indeed you may remember that back in March she asked a question at Holyrood of the Cabinet Secretary for Education about funding on Nairn Academy.
Anyway rest assured that at every possible opportunity I will continue to look for progress on the new Academy that Nairnshire so badly needs.
Auldearn speeding proposals
I’ve spoken before about the meetings I’ve been involved with to try to tackle the problems of speeding through Auldearn, especially as it’s used as part of an unofficial Nairn bypass. Plans for this are now well advanced and we ward councillors got advanced sight of the proposals this week. They look very promising and will going out to statutory partners including the Community Council soon and then to public consultation.
Nairnshire demographics
A copy of Nairn & Nairnshire; Partnership Profile Demography and Deprivation from the Public Health Intelligence at NHS Highland came my way this week and I thought it might interest some people so I've put it online. In truth if you’ve live in the area for a while there’s no big surprises but among the findings are that:
The population of Nairn and Nairnshire increased by 19% in the period from 2002 to 2021
Over this period, there was a 63% increase in the 65+ age group and a 15% increase in the population aged 16-64 years, but a 10% reduction in the population aged under 16 years … so the population is getting older.
The ratio of 2.3 people of working age (16-64 years) to older people (age 65 years and over) is lower than Highland and Scotland i.e. there’s less people of working age.
Birth rates have decreased over the last decade both here and across Highland.
The annual number of deaths in the area exceeds the number of births, and so the population growth depends on net migration gain (i.e. people like me!)
Generally speaking all these trends seem set to continue and we will all need to bear them in mind in our planning.
Nairn CCTV
The CCTV in Nairn, which I reported back in March was not working, is now finally operational again and staff at Nairn Police Station had training this week on the use of the new system.