East Nairnshire Community Council back in action

The newly made up CC met in the Glenferness hall last night. The new chairman was Andrew Walsh, the treasurer is now David Cook and the secretary Simon McPherson. Also present were members Heidi Tweedie, Margaret Walsh and Bill Evans. Debbie and David McBean sent their apologies. Highland Councillor Colin MacAulay was also in attendance and enough members of the public to make the small meeting room in the village hall look very crowded. The council debated several topics for over an hour and a half and also set out their plans to build a communications strategy with residents in their area which stretches from the boundaries of the A96 and Morayshire in the north and east and goes inland and uphill to meet the extensive boundaries of Grantown CC coming up the other way. Towards the west ENCC meets the borders of the Cawdor and West Nairnshire area and of course the Auldearn CC patch.

There was debate initially about the Council’s attitude and submission to the Cairn Duhie wind farm application. The watchdogs decided that given the time limit left for a submission the best way to assess public attitudes in their area was to go on the strength of feeling displayed locally at the like of the public meeting held in Glenferness in November of last year. (Gurn videos of that meeting here and here) which was overwhelmingly against the development.

The council intend to deliver a newsletter in the near future and create an internet presence and a facebook page. There was talk about the state of the notice boards in their area, two of them have been vandalised and there were problems about the keys to the boards. Meetings will be held every 2^nd Wednesday of every second month starting from the meeting last night (16^th July) and will include the use of the Fortnighty hall too.

The meeting also discussed traffic problems, public and school transport, the poor state of broadband in the NECC patch and the possibilities of more effective use of the Glenferness village hall. More from the NECC meeting when time permits.