Thanks to APT Sec for drawing the following very important matter to our attention. Next week at Glenurquhart Road there will be a meeting of the Highland Council and one item on the agenda will be discussion of options of resolving the 700K plus debt that the Common Good fund has to the Highland Council. The meeting is taking place on Thursday, 27 June 2013 at 10.35am. After this meeting is finished it seems that Highland Council could end up having a pro rata share of the Sandown Lands transferred to them.
There is a school of thought in Nairn that the debt incurred is Highland Council's problem and that the people of Nairn were never consulted about options for the Sandown Lands before the debts were incurred. Note that in the Forres Tolbooth last night at a meeting of the Community Council, with four Moray Councillors present the people of the Royal Burgh of Forres were promised a ballot if a developer should make an offer for the Common Good Land at Bogton. Time for such ballots in Nairn before anymore decisions are made relating to Sandown? Anyway...
5 Options listed on a report to for the Council to decide on are:
• The Council writes-off all of the outstanding debt
• The Common Good Land is advertised for sale immediately
• The Council transfers from the Common Good account a percentage of the land equivalent to the value of the outstanding debt
• The Common Good Fund uses income generated to write-down the balance of the debt over a period of time or when the land is sold
• The Council writes off all or part of the debt that relates to the fee of £390,000 paid to acquire vacant possession of the land, and transfers a percentage of the land equivalent to the value of the remaining debt.
The report also states: "Option 5 represents a compromise position, proposed by local members, that requires the Council to write-off part of the debt. This option would mean that there would be a greater benefit to the Common Good Fund as it would benefit financially to a greater extent in the event of a future sale of the land. It would also require the Council to meet the one-off cost that would have to be met from balances."
And under recommendations: " Note an Officer recommendation that Option 3 should be pursued;"
The Gurn recommends that all serious students of these matters read the report from the Director of Finanace that will be going to the full Council, it lists all the options and the benefits and disadvantages as seen from Gleunurquhart Road - it is available on line here.
4 comments:
No. It's Highland Councils fault so they should pay it out of there funds set aside for Inverness. Fed up getting hardly any services in Nairn, compared to what Inverness gets.
This has shades of Scottish Independence about it with Inverness being the Unionists and trying to scare us into giving them lots of money
Nairn's reward for voting SNP? How much of Sandown will Highland Council get?
I presume that this will be decided by the full council, in other words, there are 80 on the council so, apart from our 4 'representatives', 76 other people will have an impact on a Nairn issue. 76 who will have little knowledge on how this fiasco came about.
This seems to have appeared out of the blue, has there been any discussion locally, outwith the councillors, has there been any input from people living in the town?
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