Year 2, Week 30
Council budget, Ardersier Port, Nairn Finance Office, MSP surgery, planning applications ...
Council budget
I am still attending a lot of meetings on setting the council’s budget for 2023/24 including both Thursday afternoon and all day on Friday this week. We are still looking to save £108m over 3 years and, in particular, £61m in 2024/25. This is going to be hard but we are starting to drill down into the detail now and I’m a little more optimistic than I was.
One thing that officers are using when making their recommendations to us is the results from the budget simulator and also the survey, both of which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago and I’d encourage you to try. Interestingly so far they’ve had more responses from the survey than they have from people completing the simulator. The feedback they’re getting is that with the simulator it is really very hard to get the budget to balance without making some hard choices. As my wife would say: welcome to my world.
Ardersier Port
Last week the South Planning Applications Committee, which I chaired on this occasion, approved a planning application from the Haventus, the new owners of Ardersier Port, detailing their proposals for the area around the entrance. The most significant of these from the public point of view is that there will be new roundabout on the B9092 Nairn to Ardersier road at the port entrance.
They also want to build a roundabout on the A96 at junction with the road down to the port but that will come later.
Then on a rather wet and windy Monday we ward councillors visited to be shown around the 450 acre port area and to hear more about Haventus’ plans.
The summary is that they’re working on re-opening the facility to provide a port which can be used, in the first instance at least, to build deep water wind turbines. These will be massive, standing taller than The Shard in London when fully assembled, and will be anchored way out in the North Sea. The port will be used for both “marshalling”, so gathering and assembling components manufactured elsewhere, and also probably for manufacturing the floating bases for the turbines - which may be made in ferro-concrete or steel.
The preparatory work for this has involved dredging to re-open the old entrance to the port and they have chopping off the tip of Whiteness Head which has migrated across the port entrance since McDermott’s closed. They are now preparing to build a new harbour wall to replace the original one.
It’s a big site and it’s a big project and, if it comes off, it will be significant for our ward, not least in providing local employment, but we’re still some years away from them starting constructing the wind turbines.
Nairn Finance Office
As I’ve mentioned here before the council is looking to dispose of 4 and 6 Courthouse Lane, and often know locally as the “Italianate building”, either by sale or by Community Asset Transfer (CAT) and this process has now formally begun with a press release being posted this week.
If you think an organisation you’re involved with may be interested in acquiring this building via a CAT then you can find out more about that process here.
Emma Roddick MSP surgery
My colleague Emma Roddick, who is one of your Highlands & Islands regional MSPs, is holding a surgery in Nairn on Saturday, 16th December so if you’ve got any issues, especially Scottish government related, which you’d like to discuss with her then this is your chance. Get in touch with her office to book a space or for more information by email at Emma.Roddick.MSP@Parliament.Scot or by phone at 01463 563036.
Planning Applications
It’s been suggested to me that I let you know about all planning applications in the ward, not just the big ones, so with that in mind I’ll include a brief summary in each future post of all new applications, assuming that there are any.
There are four this week:
23/04682/FUL - Flat 6, Charlotte Court, Nairn, IV12 5BF - Use of property as short term letting unit
23/05237/MSC - Delnies, as discussed in my last post
23/05473/FUL - Cobhan Beag, Kingsteps, Lochloy Road, Nairn, IV12 5LF - Erection of dwellinghouse and installation of septic tank and soakaway
23/05494/FUL - Development Site, Merryton Farm, Lochloy Road, Nairn, IV12 5AE - Erection of house
To find details search on the reference number at https://wam.highland.gov.uk and there you can also find details on how to comment.