Year 5, Week 4
Area Committee, Rosebank toilets, Ardersier Port, works at B9006 Culloden Moor ...
Nairnshire Area Committee
Your area committee met on Monday morning. You can find the agenda and papers here and you can watch the whole meeting at the link below.
In item 5, the ‘Bereavement Services – Project Updates’ we removed the second point to be noted with respect to burial grounds as, unlike other areas, Nairnshire is blessed with a surfeit of plots with a whole new cemetery out on Granny Barbours Road which remains unused more than a decade after it was first laid out.
We also chose not to consider item 6, the ‘Environmental Health – Annual Report & Activity 2025/2026’ because we were concerned as to whether the information in the paper was correct. That will now come to our next meeting.
Of the other items it was all pretty routine stuff to be honest. We agreed to increase charges for using Common Good assets in line with inflation, we agreed that the artwork proposed for Common Good land at the riverside close to the railway viaduct could go ahead, and we had an update on plans for the Highland Games.
In regard to the latter there has been some reporting of this in the press which claimed that the Common Good will be subsidising the Games to the tune of about £21,000. This is somewhat misleading. The income from the Games, so rent the Showies and the various trader and other stalls, is expected to bring in about £21,000 against costs estimated at £20,386 - so the nett cost of the Games to the Common Good Fund will be more or less zero.
It’s also worth noting that various local charities have offered to contribute to the safe operation of the 2026 Nairn Highland Games through the following volunteering activities:
Greenhive - Litter Picking
Nairn Book & Arts Festival - Lost Property
SSAFA - Armed Forces Charity - Stewarding
Nairn CAB - Welcome Guides/Programme Sales
Nairn Highland Games Committee - Car Park Marshalling
St John Scotland - Drop Off/Pick Up property
Mikeysline - Welfare & Lost Children
So thank you to all of them for doing that.
We also noted the following Ward Discretionary Fund payments that has been approved since the previous meeting of the Committee.
Nairn Academy Parent Council Seating at new Academy (Sakura reflection area) £2,800.00
Nairn BID Seagull Prevention £3,000.00
Nairn BID Seafront noticeboard renovation £254.48
Nairn West & Suburban Community Council Cold Caller Control Zone £697.20
Laikenbuie Ecology Trust Woodland Diversification Tools £792.50
Nairn Academy Parent Council “Schools Out” Farewell to old school building £2,000.00
Rosebank Primary School toilets
Immediately after our committee meeting we met with council staff to get an update on the situation with the toilets at Rosebank. As I said last week the children in P1 and P2 have been moved to a different part of the school so they do now have access to toilets and the roof of the toilets which are newly out of commission will be repaired in time for the pupils’ return in August.
The council did consider installing “demountable” replacement toilets in the grounds but the cost could be in the order of £100,000, work could only be done on the installation at weekends, and they wouldn't be ready until the last week or two of term so the head teacher said they would cope until then.
There is however an underlying issue that, even before this recent incident, the school only barely had the number of toilets required by the School Premises (General Requirements and Standards) (Scotland) Regulations 1967 (see paragraph 15(1) and table VIII) so any loss of facilities, as has just happened, leaves the school under the required capacity.
We've asked for a meeting to be organised with the team who are responsible for this situation having arisen.
Meanwhile the Parent Council are trying to organise a meeting with Highland Council staff to discuss the same issue. I intend to attend that meeting too.
Ardersier Port
I attended a Community Liaison Group meeting for the Port this week and the news is mixed, to say the least. On the plus side they now have planning permission to extend the port area to take in some woodland to the south. They have also had visits from a number of vessels, proving that the port design works, and a jack up rig is now moored in the harbour and will be for some time to come while it changes ownership.
However, as I’ve mentioned here before, the Labour government at Westminster have blocked Chinese company Ming Yang coming to Ardersier Port and that new land was intended to house them, so that’s unfortunate.
More widely the entire offshore wind industry has been knocked back about three years by a variety of recent events including sharply rising prices for turbines (something with which the blocking of Ming Yang has not helped) and this will be affecting Nigg and Invergordon too.
Haventus continue to explore options for bringing business to the port in the meantime and no doubt we will be hearing more about that at future meetings.
B9006 Culloden Moor Battlefield Crossroads
A bit out of our ward but I know quite a lot of people are using the B9006 to get into Inverness at the moment due to the hold ups at the A9/A96 Raigmore roundabout.
New road traffic signs including new 40mph limit signs, repeaters, warning signs and relocation of existing signs to improve visibility will be carried out this week between Wednesday, 3rd and Friday, 5th June as shown on the map below.
Motorists are advised that stop/go traffic management will be used by the contractor to safely carry out the works.
The installation of new path lighting and dynamic signs will follow in the coming weeks, with appropriate traffic management and dates to be confirmed at a later date.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted:
26/01043/PIP - Land 40M SW Of Wester Hardmuir, Nairn - Erection of 2no. houses
26/01753/FUL - Head Foresters House, Ferness, Nairn, IV12 5JG - Replacement conservatory roof
26/01987/FUL - 13 Battle Hill, Auldearn, Nairn, IV12 5TP - Erection of 1.8m boundary fence
26/02095/PNO - Land 465M NW Of, Meikle Geddes Farm, Meikle Geddes, Nairn - Erection of agricultural shed
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.