Year 2, Week 50
Refuse collections, community councils, path improvements, UKSPF funding, Nairn County, Fornighty road closure but not Leopold Street, Freeport, Hate Crime bill ...
My apologies in advance for the length of this post but there’s been a lot of things going on this week which I thought you’d want to hear about.
Changes to refuse collections
You will be getting a letter from the council about this very soon but we are getting changes to our refuse collections in the ward starting in May.
There’s details at https://www.highland.gov.uk/binchanges but in summary they’re splitting recyclable waste into two categories and your 240 litre green bin will now be for plastics, metals and cartons and your 240 litre blue bin will be for paper, card and cardboard and each will be collected every four weeks.
Nairn and Auldearn will get a new food waste caddy which the council want you to use to dispose of food waste and liners will be provided to make this less yucky. This caddy will be collected weekly.
You will get a new grey bin for non-recyclable waste (i.e. replacing the old function of the green bin) which will be collected every two weeks. This bin will be 140 litre if you have a food waste collection and 180 litre if you don’t, so smaller than your existing green bin. Residents who already are allowed two green bins will get two grey bins.
The council has made a commitment to reduce the amount of non-recyclable waste sent for disposal and increase the amount recycled and the intention is that these changes will help make it easier for you to recycle more, and reduce your impact on the environment.
Separating the recyclable material collected into two bins will also improve the quality and quantity of recycling and overall this will reduce the costs associated with waste disposal by in excess of £2,000,000 per year, which is in everyone’s interest.
I should also mention that the cost of this change, which is about £6,500,000, is being born by the Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund so there’s no up front cost for the council.
I know people are going to find this confusing initially and I’m sure there will be some teething problems, for example over space for bin storage with an extra bin in the mix, and arrangements for flats in particular are already being reviewed as a result of the first wave of the roll out in Dingwall.
I think I’ve said enough for now but the council leader, Raymond Bremner, has made a long post of Facebook about this here which is worth a read, although bear in mind that he’s mainly talking to the people of Caithness, and he also made a follow up post here.
Community Councils
I went to two well attended community councils this week, Cawdor and West Nairnshire on Monday and Auldearn on Wednesday, and it was pleasing to see how both are working hard for their communities and getting things done.
Cawdor are liaising with the council and landowners to get the damage to the river path sorted out and are considering their options on a firework display for Bonfire Night. They continue to discuss speeding on the B9090 and they are also trying to arrange a meeting with Openreach to discuss improvement to broadband in the community.
Auldearn are, quite rightly, very pleased with what they’ve achieved in getting substantial traffic calming through the village. There’s still some final steps to take and they’re doing most of them but they’ve asked for my help on making sure some signage is changed so I’ll be doing that.
Other things discussed included progress on the newly resurrected football pitch, where the village club has now played, and won, three matches, the planting of a Christmas tree, a date for their spring clean of the village, grit bins for Montrose Avenue, and a spooky Halloween celebration.
Path improvements
I’m pleased to be able to report that the council has completed eight small-scale projects to improve active travel on core paths. The funding of £30,000 came from HITRANS Path Improvement Fund.
Access Officers identified eight core paths spread across the Highland area linking to services that needed small-scale improvement works. The projects range from Thurso to Fort William and from Nairn to Broadford with the work in Nairn being in Whinnieknowe Lane where drainage and surfacing work was done.
UK Shared Prosperity Fund
The Community Regeneration Fund Strategic Group met recently and awarded £1,033,354 from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to support 21 community led projects across Highland. This included three projects in the ward:
Nairn Community Transport - purchase of a new minibus - £44,500
Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE) - Local Place Plan phase 2 - £35,000.00
Nairn Bowling Club - creating support mechanisms within the community - £25,965
Congratulations to them all.
Nairn County Football Club lights
At the request of local residents I intervened this week to accelerate the process of granting planning permission for their new floodlights and, as a result, work on those will now start on Monday.
C1157 at Fornighty closure
As I mentioned last week there is a proposal to close this road for works by Openreach on Thursday, 25th April from 8:30am to 3:30pm. The proposed local diversion was via the ford through Muckle Burn and local residents pointed out to me that the ford was not suitable for all vehicles, even when the burn is not in spate.
I have spoken to officers and Openreach have now revised their diversion plans to avoid the ford.
(Non-) Closure of Leopold Street
You may have seen that another temporary road closure of Leopold Street (beginning on 22nd April) was advertised in the Nairnshire edition of the Inverness Courier on Tuesday. This closure has been cancelled by the contractor and will not be going ahead. No further closures of Leopold Steet, Nairn are planned at this time.
Freeport
The Inverness and Cromarty Firth Green Freeport, of which Ardersier Port forms part, had some news last week with the conclusion of the UK legislative process confirming their Special Tax Sites. On the back of this they have issued their first newsletter this week which you can read online here. The section headed “Green Freeport, myths and facts” makes interesting reading.
Hate Crime Bill
I don’t normally discuss national politics here but there has been a lot on nonsense talked about the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act which was passed at Holyrood recently and I found this article by Maree Todd in the John O’Groat Journal and Caithness Courier very helpful in explaining what the bill does, and equally importantly, does not do. It’s worth a read.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted:
24/00907/FUL - Scottish Water, Cawdor Waste Water Treatment Works, Cawdor - Installation of anoxic tank and control kiosk
24/01162/PIP - Land 15M East Of, 13 Moss-side Road, Nairn - Erection of house
24/01185/PNO - Craggie Farm, Nairn, IV12 5HY - Erect agricultural building
24/01318/ADV - M&Co, 63 High Street, Nairn, IV12 4BW - Erection of projecting sign
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.