South Nairn - Balblair Consultation.

In the Community Centre last Thursday this observer took a look at the latest proposal for what the planners have termed South Nairn, or rather that part of the Nairn metropolis of the future that will be in the fields opposite Firhall. Regular readers will remember the article Consultation Fatigue in which we described Rosemary Young’s displeasure at having to consider yet another plan for this spot.

Here you can see the plan at present. Plenty of trees, a nice football pitch and lots of allotments up in the left hand corner. Seems very nice and if we must have expansion of the town maybe it should look like this. There is a slight problem in that Mr Allenby doesn’t own all of this land (as this image explains) and there is another application in for part of this site. Putting in an application yourself for something you would like to see built on someone else’s land is allowed under the planning legislation however so we may see such an application soon. Lots of Firhall residents had apparently attended the latest consultation and they were vociferously opposed to the other application and this observer has no reason to believe that they have softened their stance to development in their area. Mr Allenby can expect at least 50 letters of objection if and when his application goes in?

Is all this in the lap of the by-pass gods however? You would think that such a major development couldn’t go ahead without a by-pass but remember Highland Council’s Malcolm MacLeod who indicated that some house building might be permitted on this site without a by-pass.