Year 5, Week 5
Nairn Riverside, councillors’ expenses, road closures, school roll forecasts ...
Help shape the future of Nairn Riverside
As I’ve discussed here before Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE) are leading on the creation of a new Riverside Plan, and they want to hear from you.
This project will help shape the future of the Riverside and surrounding areas in Nairn, and they are looking at opportunities to improve green spaces, paths, play, sport, biodiversity, accessibility, heritage, and community facilities for everyone.
Your views matter so please complete this survey and help create a long-term community-led vision for one of Nairn’s most important outdoor spaces.
Councillors’ expenses
All Scottish councils have to publish the salaries and expenses of their councillors each financial year and Highland Council is no exception so they’re now available online here (231KB PDF).
If you look at the figures for the whole council you will notice considerable variation in expenses claimed. Two factors come into play here. Firstly the council covers a vast area, so some councillors face a very long drive from places like Skye and Lochinver, sometimes staying overnight in Inverness before morning meetings so that they can be there on time. Secondly some councillors choose, for whatever reason, not to claim some or all of their expenses.
I’ve extracted the entries for your four ward councillors which you can see below:
Like last year apologies that this is an image so may be hard to see on mobile devices and will be unreadable if you’re blind or partially sighted so here’s a very brief summary of each of our salaries and expenses:
Laurie Fraser - £25,981.96 plus £454.93
Micheal Green - £28,544.04 plus £1,314.12
Barbara Jarvie - £25,982.04 plus £377.40
Paul Oldham - £34,530.69 plus £2,067.60
All our salaries have gone up quite a bit in the last year due to the 21.7% rise from April 2025 and my salary and expenses have both risen significantly from last year as I’m now a strategic chair which carries a higher salary to compensate for the extra work involved and that also carries over into my expenses as I’m now driving into the council’s HQ in Inverness somewhat more often than before.
High street and other road closures
As you’ll know if you came across it the council had to first close the high street end of Douglas Street after a sinkhole appeared in Douglas Street.
This then turned into a closure of the high street as the extent of the sinkhole became clear.
This was a rapidly evolving situation with the high street in particular, along with Gordon Street and The Brae, repeatedly opening and closing but I did try to keep everyone informed as best I could with posts to my Facebook page.
On Friday there was also a closure of Lochloy Road as you come into Kingsteps which sadly I wasn’t able to warn people of here as I was only told about it on Monday.
What I have had notice well in advance of is a two day on Lodgehill Gate in Nairn beginning on Wednesday, 27th June as shown on the map below.
As usual this is for BT/Openreach works and local (within and beyond the closure extent) and emergency access will be maintained.
School roll forecasts
It’s common for me to hear people saying that we don’t have enough capacity for the future growth of our school rolls so I was interested to see that the council has now published its predictions online.
They produce annual school roll forecasts covering both primary and secondary schools. It projects pupil numbers over a 15-year period, based on:
Annual pupil census data
School capacities
NHS pre-school registration figures
Placing Request trends
Residential development data from the Housing Land Audit
Forecasts include programmed housing sites and windfall developments, with pupil numbers estimated using Pupil Product Ratios (0.3 primary and 0.13 secondary pupils per new home). So this should take into account Delnies.
The forecasts for Nairn Academy and its four feeder primary schools are here (328KB PDF) and it predicts that the roll at the Academy will peak in 2026/27 at 87% and then decline, getting as low as 52% by 2040/41.
The pattern for the four primary schools is similar with Auldearn being the only one close to capacity, peaking at 94% in 2026/27 but declining thereafter.
This may all seem surprising at first glance but it’s worth bearing in mind that despite many new houses being built in Nairn, mainly down Lochloy Road, over the past twenty years school rolls have continued to fall. It seems that sadly far too many of the new residents are, like Beth and I, not of an age to be bringing children to the area and younger people with families are choosing to live elsewhere.
Planning applications
The following new applications were logged since I last posted:
26/01860/FUL - New Fleenas Farm, Nairn, IV12 5QN - Erection of replacement reception and sales building
26/01938/PIP - Land E Of North Kildrummie Farm , Moss-Side , Nairn - Erection of house
To find details search on the reference number on the planning portal where you can also find details on how to comment.