At the combined meeting of the Westies and Subbies (West and Suburban Community Councils) Dick Youngson gave those assembled his impressions of how a recent meeting between community council representatives and Transport Scotland (plus their consultants) went. This is what he said:
“We had a meeting with Transport Scotland and Jacobs their consultant. It was very interesting and a very useful meeting, we got much more out of the team especially the Jacob’s Consultant than we expected and there are a number of options they put to us which allowed us to comment. Out at the west end, the main junction or hub is going to be in line with the end of the Whiteness Head road and it will be in the quarry site. The quarry owners didn’t really want it in the active part of the quarry and they were quite happy for it to be in the east end of it.[...] And the main dual carriageway will then cross, it’ll skirt the kames SSSI, across the railway line, quite close to the humpy bridge where the Cawdor Station was and then curl right round, cross somewhere between the Howford and Broadley Farm. Perhaps closer to the Howford because if they put it down at Broadley nearer where the pylons are they are going to have to take down the pylons and pay for that; to put all the cables, incorporate them in the bridge. So it’s going to put much more expense again on it.
The Howford is actually the best area for the bridge, it’s got the height and it’s got firm foundations. The road will then curl right round and come in at Auchnacloich. They haven’t yet, there’s a number of options there – they can follow the existing Auldearn bypass and widen it slightly and they’ll have to put up supporting walls, especially where they pass the church and the graveyard and the ground away from Boath House. The other one is to skirt north of Boath House and instead of cutting Penick in two and ruining the Campbell’s place they will cut back again southwards and come in quite close to where the present A96 is and it will miss, again, taking a lot of ground from the fruit farm. The junction is more than likely to be out on the east side of the fruit farm at the top of the climbing lane coming up from Brodie. That’s a possibility.
Now to achieve this there will be no other junctions but what they do say; they will build two 2-way roads. The one coming in near where the Scotia caravans is and that will have a stone bridge over the railway, it will curve round by the south side of Balnaspirach and it will then join up with the present Road which will be Balblair Road and it will give access to Gordons Sawmill and to Nairn South for all the heavy goods as well as normal transport. It means they come out at the same sort of junction almost. It’s a brand new road, they’ll pay for it. The other one is they’ll link up the Croy Road with the Cawdor Road. They’ll put a new road there to provide a link rather than doing an underpass or something which doesn’t work and they’ll be no link up or ramp up to the motorway.
Now at the east end of the whole lot near Penick they’re going to run another new road parallel with on the north side of the new dual-carriageway to give the people that reside on that side of the road access and they’ll actually give them an underpass into Auldearn which gives them a very good road which they link up again with at the new junction out at the east end out at the climbing lane – which will no longer be a climbing lane, it will revert to bean a non-trunk Road. And they will probably do the same thing on the south side of the new dual-carriageway as well. There will be a brand new 2-way road to link in all the farms and properties on the south side. They will go straight into Auldearn and give access for Moyness and places like that, Lethen and they will then come in at the junction at the hub up at that end.
These are the options and you can see the way they are going. They still haven’t ruled out any of the other seven options. They are still being costed and they will come back to us in the autumn. Almost reading between the lines of what they are prepared to do you can see the options are quite clear and I think that is how it will end up which will actually suit most of the farmers and most of the occupiers and it will give us a clear bypass without an access or on/off and people really from Cawdor and Croy won’t be much inconvenienced. They’ll be able to get back onto the Nairn system one way of the other. "
There was then some discussion with some interesting points raised from the floor - more of that later, and other items from the meeting on Tuesday night, if time permits.
There was then some discussion with some interesting points raised from the floor - more of that later, and other items from the meeting on Tuesday night, if time permits.
Sort out the traffic lights (take them away) going along the current A96 route through Nairn and we wouldn't need a bypass
ReplyDeleteSorry but you are an idiot, and we badly need a by-pass most of us have been wanting one for over 40 years. Must be from Inverness, not wanting any money spent on Nairn.
ReplyDelete@anon 5.24, there is a significant school of thought that believes there would be considerable improvements if traffic were allowed to flow more instead of stacking up at the lights. It might be stretching it to say that that would take away the need for a bypass but those of that mind should be entitled to their point of view. Perhaps a bit of a kinder noun might have done the job better in your opening phrase.
ReplyDeletea bypass,long awaited,wouls alleviate all of Nairn,s traffic problems,also,would like to see the re introduction of a traffic warden.nairn has become a free for all,park where you like town.
ReplyDeleteWhy bother with the tens of millions of pounds required for people to avoid Nairn, when surely we want people into Nairn, and hopefully keep them there as long as possible so they can spend money in local private businesses?
ReplyDeleteSurely we should be better not spending tens of millions of pounds for a bypass, not allow further new housing and spend money on car parks or funding the wages of a traffic warden.
We don't want new houses or new people in Nairn. Want passing tourists to spend their money for the benefit of Nairnites and only Nairnites.