The overuse of exclamation marks came in a comment received in reply it seems to some satiric comments on another thread. Someone had jokingly said:
NAIRN it is with great sadness that we announce the sudden death of our beloved Nairn who will be sorely missed by all, a good friend to many, who fought the battle bravely & with great dignity but Father Time has caughtup & the heart beats no more. All friends respectfully invitedbut no councillors please.
Further arrangements published later later
Further comments included:
'It was very sad to read about the death of Nairn as a friend I knew for a long time that its not been in the best of health, but i will always remember the good times we had. RIP'
'Nairn suffered from the terminal illness brought on by centralisation, firstly losing its identity and sadly eventually fading away with barely a whimper.'
In reply we have now received the following:
The Death of Nairn!!!!!!!
What about everywhere else in the Highlands?
The area around Inverness and Nairn must grow in order to produce a trickle of prosperity to all other areas across the Highlands.
The population of the Highlands is increasing but the numbers of elderly are increasing at the fastest rate, so things must happen quickly in order to put as much as possible in place during the course of this administration.
We need new investment to compensate for the widespread predicted loss in public sector jobs as well as securing as many as possible of the public sector jobs.
The new airport business park will bring jobs very soon, and the University will bring us new young people who will choose to stay and we will also keep those young people who would otherwise leave. The new town at Inverness East will pump investment in and bring lots of affordable housing and plenty of shops. The new addition to the exisitng retail park will facilitate a diversity of retail experience in this area.
Inverness Town Centre will prosper, not decline as the naysayers would have us believe thanks to the forthcoming city vision.
Get real folks, we must expand and urbanise or die. We must build and sell much smaller units in order to still balance the books.
Oh and stop moaning about not being consulted most of you do not take an interest until it is too late to do anything about it anyway.
It is a fact that barely anyone will bother to write in about the local plans. Oh and I look forward to barely anyone bothering to take an interest in what their local community council is doing either.
And for goodness sake stop wingeing on about increased traffic, so what, other places have problems too, it is a natural consequence of prosperity and a few extra minutes on a journey is a small price to pay for investment.
Hard to know where to start in response to the "Death of Nairn!!!!" post. Let's take the comments in order;
ReplyDelete- Inverness and Nairn must grow in order to produce a trickle of prosperity to all other areas . The trickledown theory has long been discredited. It simply doesn't happen. The danger is the opposite. As Inverness city grows, the concentration and centralisation of jobs, services and facilities draws people in from the peripheral areas of the region, undermines the communities in smaller towns and rural villages, and makes the imbalance of development even more acute. We have already seen the closure of public services (courts, planning office etc) in Nairn, and similar closures elesewhere, as these jobs are relocated to Inverness. Far from trickling prosperity down, the expansion of the central "city-region" is sucking the rest of the Highlands dry.
- population/elderly are increasing etc . Yes, the demographics of the Highlands pose a planning challenge. But massive development of the Inner Moray Firth area won't address that issue.
- new investment to make up for loss of public sector jobs... and to secure as many as possible public sector jobs(?) . The region's dependence on public sector employment makes it very vulnerable. Public sector jobs WILL disappear. New jobs will come if private business can be encouraged to invest. What attracts private investment is good, efficient infrastructure, good communications, and quality facilities. Building housing won't deliver that. Nor is it the way to compensate for loss of public sector jobs.
- new airport business park, University, new town at Inverness East, new retail park... . Get real. These things don't happen by magic. They will only happen if investors see these ideas as attractive, financially viable and offering better opportunities than elsewhere. The government doesn't have the money to build them. The banks won't lend to developers unless they can be sure of a return. Instead of pinning hopes on some new Klondyke (renewable energy, anyone?) stimulated by massive urbanisation, ask yourself what features really do lead people to want to live, work, or visit and spend time in this region, and then enhance those features. People don't come to the region, or invest in it, because Inverness, Milton of Leys or Culloden have vast housing estates and the A9 and A96 have serious traffic problems.
- expand and urbanise, or die [and] don't whinge about traffic . If this region - and especially the Inner Moray Firth - becomes an extended urban and suburban zone, as current plans threaten, the region WILL die. Concreting over the rural landscape, 'developing' the coast, allowing Inverness to spread east and south, will destroy the very characteristics which at present make the area attractive to residents, businesses, investors, and visitors. The heart of Inverness is already dying because of the expansion of retail parks on the edges of the city. As for Nairn and the Moray Firth coast - look what happened to the Spanish Costas and the coast of Croatia when greedy builders and developers were given free range by the local authorities and planners.
- ... being consulted... taking an interest in local community councils.... Have you noticed how many responses were submitted on the draft HwLDP? The problem is not the level of local engagement, it is the fact that the Council appears to resist or ignore most of what local residents are saying.
If the author of the "Death of Nairn!!!" diatribe had tongue in cheek and was trying to be satirical too, then the attempt failed dismally. If however the writer was serious and actually believes what s/he wrote, then we are in even deeper trouble than I feared.
It has been confirmed officially that Nairn is dead going by the comments of some businesses owners on the High Street with little trade passing through their door, & questions are also being asked about the standard of work plus the layout of the pavements, so here's hoping it will look a lot better once the project is finished hopefully in the next few weeks,then next can
ReplyDeletethey move on up the road to The Regal Cinema & the garage site & not forgetting the old bus station how many more years will we still have to suffer these eyesores.