Year 3, Week 7
Delnies, writing to me ...
Delnies
This week the next planning application for Delnies came to the South Planning Applications Committee which outlined how Barrett Developments propose to build 300 houses on the agricultural land which was recently up for sale on the north side of the A96 just west of Nairn. If you’re not familiar with the Delnies master plan, of which this development forms part, then I wrote an article on it last October so I’d start there.
The detailed proposals had a great deal of opposition from Nairnshire, both generally at the idea of siting houses in a field separated from the rest of the town and also the specific proposal to site the SuDS pond for the development on land previously promised to Nairn Golf Club for future expansion.
I brought a motion to reject the application on the grounds that it breached the Highland Wide Local Development Plan Policy 17, the new Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan (IMFLDP2), and National Planning Framework 4 but was told by officers that this wasn’t competent as the existing planning permission in principle dating back to 2008 was a material consideration which overrode all of those.
As I said in my closing speech:
Today we have seen planning fail our communities. We are allowing a development which will create a blot on the outskirts of Nairn, is not well connected with the community, and will not be of benefit to the community of Nairn.
This is also not the end of the expansion. Although the outline planning permission was only for 300 houses, which is what the new application specifies, you’ll note from the plans that the road layout is predicated on there being further development at Delnies in the future with two road stubs on the north west side and three further potential link points to the west.
In theory this would be difficult for any developer as the land is not zoned for housing in the IMFLDP2 but that can be overridden by making Delnies a Masterplan Consent Area.
A paper is coming to full council on Thursday which calls for 24,000 new houses in Highland in the next ten years to cope with the increasing demand for housing, especially arising from the freeport. This will increase the housing stock across Highland by 20%. The vast majority of these houses will inevitably be around the inner Moray Firth, so it seems likely to me that we will see more houses being proposed for Delnies and also in other sites around Nairn like Nairn East, this despite the IMFLDP2 and the emerging Nairnshire Local Place Plan.
Writing to me
Most residents now email me if they want to get in touch (and thank you to everyone who has got in touch with me over the last week about the Community Centre issue) but if you do want to post something to me then oddly it will get to me sooner if you post it to Highland Council HQ as I generally have to visit there several times a week.
I mention this as I’m getting the odd letter hand delivered to the service point at the Courthouse in Nairn and the council won’t forward letters to me but instead wait for me to visit, which I do a lot less often.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted:
24/02150/FUL - Land 390M NW Of Carnoch, Nairn - Installation of 25kW ground mounted solar array
24/02410/FUL - 17 George Wilson Road, Auldearn, Nairn, IV12 5TN - Erection of extension
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.