Changing Nairn town centre policy – An initiative begins at Glenferness Village Hall

Liz and Colin have indicated before that they wish to see the site of the Old Community Centre taken off the market by Highland Council and for full community consultation on what should in its place in the longer term. In the meantime there will be a 29 space car park once the tarring goes ahead. Up at the East Nairnshire Community Council Meeting tonight (Tuesday) however Liz began her campaign of obtaining community backing for a removal from sale of the site. This will help the case when a report on overturning the decision to put the site on the market goes before the Council. The East Nairnshire councillors agreed to write a letter of support to the Highland Council. Asking folk out there to comment you ask? Why not? They have as much need of a parking space in the town centre as the rest of us when they come into town. It seems sensible to make our town centre as accessible as possible otherwise it is just as easy for some Nairnshire folk to go down to Forres for their shopping or even Aviemore perhaps, for that matter.

There was quite a lot of other material on the agenda up at Glenferness tonight and this observer will return to some of the issues and perspectives debated by the rural folk later. It was interesting, after the macro level Tornagrain debacle in Inverness today that dented public confidence in the planning system, to hear from Community Councillors how they are totally scunnered with things at their wee micro rural level and how the effort they all put into it can sometimes be discarded in a brutal way – but more on that over the next few days on the Gurn. Also up at Glenferness tonight were Colin and Laurie.

Back to the subject. Liz said; “When you look at it now, it’s all opened up with the old Community Centre gone. We’ve got opportunities now to do something with the heart of our town that we never had before. So if all the Community Councils were supportive of it then that would be a very positive statement to make from Nairn and Nairnshire[…] So we’ve got to overturn that decision and take it off the market, and not rush into doing the wrong thing, we need to just take a breathing space and review what we’ve got.”

Next up for Liz, Nairn West Community Council tomorrow night (Weds) - can they better the free cupa and piece of cake that East Nairnshire offers to visitors?