Year 4, Week 11
Parking on The Links, bin collections, project coordinator sought, Howford Bridge, road closures ...
Parking on The Links
Your ward councillors had already had emails from local residents about cars parking on the grass at The Links, which has happened over the summer for quite a while now, but then this week the council’s rangers posted this notice which has caused quite a lot of comment, both by email and on social media.
Just to be clear we ward councillors didn't know anything about this sign until we were contacted by the press. As I’ve discussed here before we have asked the council to undertake a review of parking throughout Nairn as we are worried that doing isolated changes can have unforeseen consequences and here’s an example: if the cars can’t park on the grass where will they park? And who will then be upset?
We have asked for the decision to erect this sign to be on the agenda for our next ward business meeting.
Bin collections
Bin collections in the ward remain problematic and the advice I've been given is to leave bins out until they are collected. As a councillor I now don’t feel I can do any more on this one so if you’re not happy with your collections then I suggest that rather than contacting me you raise a complaint on the council. You can find details about how to do that here.
Nairn Dunes Resilience Project
NICE has secured funding from the Highland Council’s Climate Hub to employ a part time project coordinator between now and Christmas to work with local volunteers, community bodies, and conservation organisations to deliver a small pilot project to clear scrub and replant marram grass in the Nairn Central Beach area, with the aim of building dune resilience and protecting the fragile natural habitat for the Small Blue butterfly and other endangered native species.
Details of the post can be found here and the closing date for applications is Monday, 28th July at noon with interviews planned for week beginning 4th August.
Howford Bridge
I had a query this week about the traffic lights on the B9090 coming out of Nairn to the south of the Howford Bridge over the River Nairn and I’ve asked the relevant highways manager for an update. They report:
We have been monitoring cracking on the carriageway over the past few months in order to satisfy us that the settlement of the retaining wall was complete.
Having monitored it for some time now, the design engineers are satisfied that the settlement has taken place and that we can go ahead with resurfacing this section of road.
We are in the process of procuring a contractor to complete this work (expected in the coming weeks) at which time we will remove the traffic lights.
So that would explain why no works have been carried out so far but it does look we're now, slowly, heading towards this being sorted out.
Road closures
The U3164 at Bogside of Boath will be closed beginning on Tuesday, 22nd July for works by BT/Openreach.
Signed diversions will be in place and local and emergency access will be maintained.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted.
225/02213/FUL - East Balcroy, Nairn, IV12 5NY - 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.