Year 4, Week 44
Council budget, A96 roadworks, Nairn Academy ...
Council budget
This Thursday we agreed the council budget for 2026-27 which came in at £867.9m. You can read the full details here (3MB PDF) and I’ll cross reference to page numbers below.
This is a big document and covers a lot of ground but the council has put out an infographic about the our new investments outwith the Highland Investment Plan.
To help address the Highland Housing Challenge and get more homes back into regular ownership we agreed to increase the council tax on second homes to 300% of what ordinary residents pay in 2026/27, with planned rises to 350% in 2027/28 and 400% in 2028/29.
Perhaps more significantly, as these tend to be the sort of homes locals want to live in, we agreed a new scheme for Long-Term Empties. This means that when a house has been unoccupied for 12 months the council tax will rise to 250% (previously 200%), and then after 24 months it will rise to match that for second homes. See Annex 7b on page 143 for more on this.
This should give people who inherit properties - a big reason for long-term empties to exist - sufficient time to get the property back to being inhabited while providing every incentive for them not to hold off doing so indefinitely.
We are also creating a Housing Challenge Fund (see page 62) of £1m/year, relying on the additional income from these higher rates, to support initiatives to increase the availability of housing in the Highlands including introducing a scheme of grants and loans to support bringing these long-term empty properties back into occupation and use.
As part of this budget we are increasing council tax by 7%, 5% towards general rises and 2% for our Highland Investment Plan of which I’ve spoken here before. In essence the Plan calls for us to increase council tax by at least 2% every year over the next 20 years and earmark that to increasing our borrowing. This gives us the equivalent of £50-60m a year to spend on capital projects while keeping our borrowing costs at around 9-10% of our revenue costs, and hence affordable.
Across Scotland the median rise was 7.85% and here’s a chart comparing percentage rises and, as you can see, we’re about a quarter of the way up from the bottom.
Alongside that here’s a chart of Band D council tax rates by council and here we’re about a third of the way up from the bottom.
I realise the 7% Council Tax increase will hit some people hard, but don’t forget that there is a Council Tax Reduction scheme that helps people on low incomes pay their Council Tax, and we will put your hard earned money to good use by investing in things like our school estate, roads, adult social care, and housing. Locally we’re also doubling the core funding of community councils (see page 66) and we’ve increased the Ward Discretionary Fund by 35% (see page 64) which allows us to spend money on projects specifically for the ward.
This is a big budget, and covers a lot of ground, but do get in touch if you want more explanation of any of the details.
A96 roadworks
I’m sure you’ve all been as frustrated as I have been by the latest round of roadworks on the A96, this time on the bridge over the river. Nairn was completely gridlocked during the day early in the week. I and my fellow ward councillors have been in contact with Amey (again!) expressing our frustrations.
As for the wider issue - as I said in my last blog - we’ve being pressing for contractors to use manually operated lights, rather than automatic, to better cope with the varying traffic flow and Amey claim they have told the contractors to do that, but there seems to be little evidence of it thus far.
There are also issues with the permanent traffic lights which are adding to journey time delays in the town. The Lochloy Road lights were due for some repair work on Thursday night although I haven’t seen much evidence of this. The lights next to the library car park also have issues which are allegedly more complex and may take longer to resolve.
It’s all very unsatisfactory but we are putting what pressure on that we can.
I would urge you to do so as well which you can do when you see issues via the methods outlined on this page.
Nairn Academy
Work on the new academy is progressing nicely although we’ve had some issues over the last couple of weeks with contractors parking in Glenelg Gardens. The school and Balfour Beatty are, hopefully, addressing this.
I’ve also been asked to point out that a total of 24 apprenticeships have been created through the project by Balfour Beatty and its supply chain partners, who are our workforce of the future.
The company also created a ‘work experience week’ for some of the school’s pupils, including courses in Health and Safety Awareness and Construction Skills.
You can read more on this here.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted.
26/00503/FUL - 11 Grant Street, Nairn, IV12 4NN - 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.