Year 3, Week 52
Service Point opening hours, Rosebank Primary School, roads re-opened and closed, Major Energy Related Planning map ...
Service Point opening hours
With immediate effect the council’s service point in the Courthouse on the high street is open on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.
At this office the council will:
Report and request services for you - housing benefit, blue badges, etc
Help you complete forms and provide general assistance
Provide a range of advice and information on all Highland Council services including planning
Register births, deaths and marriages (by appointment)
Rosebank Primary School
Some good news for Rosebank. Back in January 2023 after an inspection Education Scotland set out a number of areas for improvement for the school. They visited again in 2024 and published another letter in March.
Another inspection has now been made and all parents and carers should have had a letter this week which goes into a lot of detail about the progress made since the first inspection and concludes:
The school has made good progress since the original inspection. We are confident that the school has the capacity to continue to improve and so we will make no more visits in connection with this inspection.
Council education officers will continue to link in and support the school but this is great news for the school and the staff team!
Roads re-opened and closed
This week I have a re-opening, as well as some more planning closures.
Drumduan bridge
The re-opening is the U2297 road at Drumduan which was originally closed back in November for repairs to the bridge over Auldearn Burn. The delay in repairing it was because lime mortar was used to repair the cracked and damaged arch barrel deck as it is more resistant to moisture and water ingress. Lime mortar needs dry and warm weather in order to set and cure properly and so the repair had to wait until the Spring.
Nairn High Street
The high street and linked roads will be closed on Saturday, 10th May for the Taste of Nairn Street Festival with diversions in place.
Closures near Cawdor
Meanwhile BT Openreach continue with their rolling programme of road closures.
The C1154 at Drumcharrel via Urchany towards the B9101 at Heathmount will be closed from Monday, 5th May to Friday 16th May.
The U3138 from the B9101 to Culcharry will also be closed from Monday, 5th May to Friday 16th May.
Diversions will be in place for both closures but local and emergency access will be maintained.
Major Energy Related Planning map
On Wednesday the council published its Renewable Energy Mapping Tool.
If you are interesting in understanding the location and type of renewable energy projects within Highland this will let you discover not only what already exists on the ground but also the stage that any projects may be at within the planning process. The tool provides key information for each development in a single click with an easy link into the planning case file where further detailed information is required. The information can be easily filtered in many different ways to ease a particular search.
The mapping tool enables you to search for a variety of energy planning projects including: pump storage, wind, energy storage, transmission grid, transmission switching substations and converter infrastructure, hydro and other relevant applications.
Having tried it it’s not that easy to use but the council will be providing an online training video on how to use it so that users can get the most out the information available to them.
Currently, 1,305 records of applications are included in the mapping database and detailed information about each can be viewed individually or collectively. Although that seems like a lot do note that many of them are old applications which have been superseded. For example I was looking at a wind farm this week which had six applications relating to a variety of schemes proposed a different times for the one location.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted:
25/00158/CLE - Balfreish, Cawdor, Nairn, IV12 5XY - Occasional use of steading as wedding venue
25/00654/FUL - Greenlawns, 13 Seafield Street, Nairn, IV12 4HG - Change of use from Class 7 to Class 9 (house)
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.