Year 4, Week 3
Delnies, horses on Lochloy Road, Kingsteps Quarry, Nairn West & Suburban Community Council, East Nairnshire Community Council, Council of Sanctuary ...
Delnies
I’ve not driven out of Nairn this weekend but by now the roundabout for Delnies should be in operation and the traffic lights gone. At last!
The other things you’ll notice as you come into Nairn from Inverness is that the “Welcome to Nairn” signs are now out just beyond the B9092 fork back to Ardersier and the road is then 40mph until closer to the roundabout where it then drops to 30mph and remains at that speed until the 20mph limit just after the Moss-Side Road traffic lights.
This is as we agreed at the South Planning Applications Committee last summer.
I think this is all good news for people who live at that end of the town where both I and our MSPs have had a string of complaints about people speeding on the old 40mph section down to the Tradespark Road crossroads making the A96 difficult to cross, and also about drivers going through the Sandown Road/Sandown Farm Lane crossroads at over 60mph when the limit was 40mph.
The new 30mph limit, and also the effective traffic calming effect of the new roundabout, should help with both of these issues considerably.
Horses on Lochloy Road
Talking of speeding as you leave Nairn on Lochloy Road heading towards Forres there is a clear sign warning you to look out for horses for the next two miles and there’s a similar sign coming the other way.
Despite this I’m told that there has been a number of recent incidents, including one this week, where there was a near collision between a car and a horse and rider. I am talking to officers about whether we can get some more signs on this section but in the mean time can I urge everyone to take care on this road, especially when approaching any of the many blind corners.
Kingsteps Quarry
You may remember that back in February I told you that work was going to be done on the paths in the quarry. Sadly although some parts were done to a good standard, especially most of the top path, some other sections including the main path to Kingsteps itself which is an “active travel route” were not done so well and I had one report of someone falling over on the poor surface.
I have been chasing to get this remedied for far too long but the work was finally done this week, after many delays, and the paths are now of the standard I was expecting in the first place.
Nairn West & Suburban Community Council
This community council meets on Monday night at 7pm at the Community Centre where they are holding both their AGM and then an ordinary meeting. Both are open to all members of the public. You can find more details including agendas, here.
East Nairnshire Community Council
After we agreed at the last full council to split the area covered by this community council in two we are now into the final phase for Community Council Scheme Review. You can find details here and I would strongly urge you to comment if you’re affected by this.
In particular the current proposal (at my suggestion) is to split the area using the A939 as the dividing line. It was pointed out to me by at least one resident that it might make sense to vary this around the Ferness area to keep all residents in that area in one community council. Other communities, like around Littlemill for example, might be of the same mind, so if you have a view on this I would strongly suggest responding to the consultation.
Council of Sanctuary
I don’t normally post about decisions made at Highland Council which don’t have much impact on Nairn but there was a story in the press this week which caused comment on social media. The Press and Journal headline was Plan to make Highlands ‘City of Sanctuary’ for refugees thrown out amidst concerns of virtue signalling and the Inverness Courier had Highland Council aims to become a ‘Council of Sanctuary’ for ‘those fleeing persecution and violence’ and to my mind both headlines were misleading and stirred people up in a way which wasn’t justified. A thread on the Facebook group ‘Nairn Rocks!!’ was particularly toxic.
I was at the Housing and Property Committee where we considered this so let me explain what was actually proposed.
Highland Council has a good record of accommodating refugees from conflict, in particular from Afghanistan and Ukraine, and I think it’s something of which we can all be proud.
Since 2021 the council has resettled at-risk families - so families of interpreters from the British Army for example - as a result of the crisis in Afghanistan. This was primarily done using spare accommodation at the army’s Cameron Barracks in Inverness, not social housing.
In more recent years, Highland had one of the highest numbers of ‘expressions of interest’ following the request by UK Government to the public to open their homes to Ukrainian refugees and we have welcomed 233 people displaced from the war in the homes of people who had volunteered to do so.
Since 2022, 56 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children have also been relocated to the region.
The taking up of the Council of Sanctuary award was proposed to acknowledge the work of the council in being a welcoming place of safety and being proud to offer a place of sanctuary from those fleeing persecution and violence.
Despite this we got some very odd reactions. Cllr McDonald pointed out he previously served as a Major in the army for 34 years and he spoke of his experience with army-employed Afghan civilians. He said:
I went to the front gate in Kabul with my team with full body armour on to bring these people into the camp – I know how scared they were. So I understand wholeheartly what these people go through, what they went through, and what they are suffering now.”
I would propose that we continue to support the refugees in the manner that we have done for years – quietly, meaningfully and respectfully.
But having talked positively about the very people we had been helping he then went on to propose that we not become a Council of Sanctuary because, to paraphrase him “some people on social media weren’t happy”.
I’d suggest that those people hadn’t read the paper. If they had they’d hopefully be proud that both the council and the people the Highlands had done the right thing in times of crisis elsewhere in the world.
Anyway the bottom line is that this proposal was defeated by nine votes to seven so Highland Council will not become a Council of Sanctuary. I think that’s a shame, we should be using our judgement and trying to represent the whole community, not just listening to the loudest voices on social media.