Nairn River Community Council

You may recall that Nairn River Community Council submitted a Participation Request to Highland Council at the start of May, following procedures laid out in the Community Empowerment Act.
NRCC Participation Request May 18

We have just heard this week that this request has  been turned down by Highland Council, as not constituting a valid Participation Request, apparently because we did not specify a single 'outcome' for our local area which we felt we could improve by our involvement, or specify precisely what improvement we wanted to see.
Instead we chose to submit a 'global' request  covering  all outcomes included in the 'Highland Outcomes Improvement Plan'. We proposed that consulting with  and engaging local communities better in local decision making  on community planning was likely to improve all local outcomes, not just a single one.

The  response  we received is here
NRCC Participation Request Response from HC June18

Despite this refusal you will see t…

Find below the Agenda and minutes for the upcoming Nairn River Community Council AGM and Ordinary meeting on 20th June 2018 at Nairn Community Centre starting at 7 pm
Agenda NRCC Ordinary meeting 20 June 18

MInutes NRCC 16 May 2018

NRCC AGM agenda 20 June 18

Minutes NRCC AGM Apr 2017

See latest news on Nairn planning applications on our previous posting here
Kingsteps planning decision deferred till Lochloy site visit on 8th August

Plans for 115 homes to be built by Springfield development on Councillor Liz MacDonald's land at Kingsteps will go to the planning committee tomorrow 12th June.
See below the planner's report,
SPAC 12 Jun18 Item 6.8 Springfield Properties
We feel this report  is inadequate in briefing decision makers on the scale and detail of the many objections to this plan posted on the e planning website,  both from community  groups and residents in Nairn( including NRCC) and from public agencies at Highland level who have raised many concerns about  the impact of this major development on local traffic, drainage, sewerage, wildlife and other local services and infrastructure. The additional housing proposed will swell the Lochloy estate to around 1000 homes with no school or community facilities and only a single access road to the A96 and rest of Nairn.
We have thus today along with 2 residents groups( Kingsteps Residents and Nairn Residents Concern Group), lodged a request for a pre de…

In case you'd like  to know what Community Councillors do between meetings ( apart from reading about ourselves in the Nairnshire and on social media....) we have been quite busy since April

LOCAL DECISIONS AND COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT
We have on Monday 6th May sent out a joint letter  with 5  other Nairn community groups
 to  the highest level of Highland Council and the Scottish Government and our elected representatives,
 to complain about inadequate structures in place to support  consultation and involvement of Nairn communities  in local development and community planning matters.
We are concerned that in Highland the principles of the Community Empowerment Act ( 2015) are not being effectively implemented, with potentially damaging effects for Nairn when decisions are taken  without local consultation and due consideration of  local  priorities and needs.
You can read this letter here
Local Decisions and Community Empowerment joint letter May18

PARTICIPATION REQUEST TO HIGHLAND…

Here is the Agenda for the next meeting of Nairn River Community Council to be held in Nairn Community and Arts Centre at 7 pm on Wednesday 16th May
Agenda NRCC 17 May 2018 
You may also be interested in reading the draft minutes of our last meeting
NRCC Draft Minutes 18 April 2018
We have been busy since April - see our next posting to see what we've been up to...
You can find it here
Local consultation and community empowerment

Nairn River Community Council has recently posted three  planning comments in relation to
current planning applications. We have  noted a number of longstanding concerns around the pressing need for investment in infrastructure ( roads, drainage, sewerage) , and increased traffic congestion in East Nairn ( A96/Lochloy Road, Merryton junction bottleneck)  .
We have also noted the pressing need for local school and other community provision at Lochloy estate to keep pace with further housing proposed in this area, as Auldearn Primary is now at full capacity, and Millbank will be if all  housing proposed is built. This need only came to our attention in early 2018  after a  visit from a Highland Council Care and Learning official to our February meeting to discuss possible changes in school catchment areas across Nairnshire to accommodate the rapid growth in population at Lochloy.

As all 3 pending applications below will impact on traffic and  add pressure on other infrastructure in Nair…