Dear Gurnmeister,
Another wee observation for your entertaining website.
I see from this weeks Highland Snooze that ‘Invercentricity’ has been taken to new levels, where ‘10 tonnes of sand, palm trees and a dolphin mural’ have been used in the creation of a ‘beach’ in Falcon Square The 'beach' must be a substitute for the slimy, foul smelling area of foreshore opposite the Golden Mile. It doesn't seem to mention how much the beach has cost. This actually sound to me like the latest effort to eventually relocate all Nairn’s amenities to the Highland Capital’ with the additional economic benefit to our big city neighbours of curtailing the leakage of Invernessian money from the food court at the Eastgate Centre to Nairn’s Links Cafe . I doubt it won't be long before the East and West beaches are barriered off with red and white tape by men in dayglo jackets. Nairnites can then visit Inversnecky beach after signing on, visiting the job centre, making your court appearance, getting a choice of supermarket and visiting the council chamber. In fact, they may as well just stay in Inverness while they're there, and the Highland Council’s objective will have been achieved.
Regards
Nairnac
Remarkable goings on Nairnac, what will they try next to bring Nairn to heel? The Press and Journal states that this venture cost £4,500. 'The project cost £4,500 and was funded and managed by Inverness Business Improvement District (Bid). Bid manager Stefan Krause said the idea was to encourage people to meet and interact with each other.'
For the same price a 1,000 Invernessians could have walked over to the Falcon Square bus stop and purchased a £4.50 return ticket to the miles of free beach where you can interact or not, no pressure at all.
I read about it a while back (a week ago?) and saw it a few days later when I was in Inverness chaperoning my mother one morning. It struck me as really rather a sad spectacle with the sand contained in some kind of blue tarpaulin kind of material (no doubt intended to substitute for sea). Given the unpredictability of the weather I can't see it posing much of a threat; it's after all just a glorified sand-pit, such as many people have in their back-gardens for kids to play in. It'll become grubby pretty quickly, I imagine, unless they spend a lot to sift out debris, something done for free by the tides in Nairn. It's a gimmick, nothing more.
ReplyDeleteOf course I did live in Inverness (in Culloden) until about 8 years ago and whilst I had a lovely home I moved to Nairn specifically to be near a beach, one amenity totally lacking in Inverness.
HI, the 'beach idea' isn't new. A lot of cities create artificial spaces where people can meet, enjoy themselves. Falcon Square has nothing to offer - so it's fun and something different. Why it should become grubby pretty quickly? They clean it every morning, over daytime and evenings. The kids love it and it's an activity from the traders in Inverness to keep shoppers here. Sorry, they will not buy bus tickets for Nairn. Nairn could promote the Nairn beach better - and please avoid 'the BBQ communities' at your beach - that makes the Nairn beach grubby! Cu Stk.
ReplyDeleteIt made me smile to see kiddies with their shoes off exploring the sand and digging to find the images of "treasure" hidden underneath it. Nairn has a great beach and we love going for walks along there in the evening, but that's no reason to deny youngsters a little play time in the city too.
ReplyDeleteI hear from a very unreliable source that in an effort to balance things up, Highland Councils Invercentricity Reciprocity department are to provide a mock up of a job centre, dole office and court house complete with bewigged magistrate on the High Street on alternative Wednesdays in order to placate the disenfranchised citizens of the pesky wee town.
ReplyDelete