Nairn Highland Games
I’ve had contacts from residents this week suggesting, on the back of a frankly misleading press story, that “Highland Council is not funding Nairn games, the reason given being lack of finances”. As ever, it’s not as simple as that.
The history of the Games is complicated. For a start it is the only one in the Highlands which does not charge a fee for entry, other than to the arena. Fees elsewhere locally include Forres (£10) and Inverness (£11.50) and, further afield, if you want to peer at the King from afar, Braemar ticket prices start at £16.46 including a booking fee.
Part of the reason for that is that our Games is really two events taking place at the same time. There’s the events inside the arena, which are run by the Games Committee, and there’s everything outwith the area which is the work of Highland Council, acting on behalf of the Nairn Common Good Fund. So, for example, The Shows pay the Common Good, as do the stall holders, and the council organises and pays for things like the additional toilets.
Historically the Council has also done some of the work for the Games Committee inside the arena, so things like painting the white lines and digging the long jump pit and it’s Council staff who clean all the litter after everyone has departed.
In recent years however with the reduction in outdoor staff and the problems of recruiting the council has struggled to find the people to do its part but officers are working to have the resource in place for this year.
Looking forward we local members suggested a new and more sustainable model, which the Games Committee seemed content with. The Committee would take on responsibility for everything, in return for this they would get all the fees paid by The Shows to the Common Good and half the fees paid by the stall holders. Council officers are continuing to discuss the transition plan with arrangements to be confirmed for next year’s Games however they have yet to be fully agreed.
We have also given the Committee free use for storage of the stables of Viewfield House, which is in the ownership of the Common Good.
For their part the Committee has also been taking steps to help ensure the long term viability of the Games, in particular the Committee is now a registered charity which opens up all sorts of interesting possibilities for alternative funding streams in the future.
20mph limits
I wrote last week about how the council agreed to make permanent the new 20mph speed limits in communities across Highland and that I’d had no one contact me saying they weren’t happy with them. Inevitably I’ve now had one so it’s perhaps time to point people to this article 20mph limits in London linked to sharp fall in road injuries and deaths, new report finds which looked at roads in London with 20mph limits between 1989 and 2013.
Across all the schemes studied, the results were consistently positive:
Total collisions fell by 35% (compared to 12% in the control group)
All casualties fell by 36%
Fatal or serious injuries fell by 34%
Child casualties dropped by 46%, and children killed by 75%
Among people walking, cycling, or riding motorcycles, killed or seriously injured figures were reduced by 28%
Meanwhile I’ve had several emails from people asking for more 20mph limits or for measures to help remind visitors that their road has a 20mph limit so I’m talking to officers about that.
Road closures
We’ve had this one before but BT/Openreach are closing a section of the C1154 across the Bruachmary Burn east of Clunas reservoir as shown on the map below beginning on 9th June.
As usual diversions will be in place and local and emergency access will be maintained.
How you can help me
Last week’s post resulted in several emails thanking me for the updates I post here. So thank you for those and also for those I’ve received in the past.
But here’s a way you can help me to help you: despite each blog post now typically being opened by over 1,000 people we have over 10,000 people in the ward and so I still have a lot of people who email me asking for help who don’t know about this blog.
So let your friends and neighbours know about it when you speak to them. The address is easy to remember, it’s just:
Enter that into your web browser address bar and you’ll be taken straight there. Or enter it into the search bar and, with a bit of luck, it should be an early match.
If social media is your bag then I’m on Mastodon and Bluesky so if you are too then you could follow me there. I post a link to each post on each platform so if you ‘boost’ or ‘repost’ any post which particularly interests you then your followers get to see it and, if they’re interested, they may then choose to follow me too.
I also have a page on Facebook and, if you follow that page, you’ll see that I post a link to each post there. So again you can ‘share’ any post which particularly interests you so your friends get to see it, and they may then follow me there too.
So thank in advance if you can help me.