Nairn River Enterprise – Social enterprise satellite of River CC – just about leaves the drawing board?

Gurnites will remember perhaps this article back in July when we detailed the £5,000 that River CC had been awarded by the Highland Council Area Committee’s Deprived Area fund to look at ways to take this forward. At the time Simon Noble said: 

“The object of the social enterprise is, first and foremost, to create routes to employment for local people. So the possibility of training, apprenticeship, that kind of thing. The vehicle would be this common areas maintenance work and the long term aim if that proves to be successful and sustainable to develop something which could then take forward the ideas about recycling and reuse schemes and the river regeneration scheme. At this stage that is as far as we have got. We have a further meeting coming up next month”

“Nairn River Enterprise” now has a committee all of its own and seems to have a semi-independent orbit out in the community. Simon updated his colleagues at River CC’s regular meeting last week, he told them:

“We have appointed a consultant to support us in setting up a social enterprise. The working title at the moment is Nairn River Enterprise. That social enterprise will be intended to be used as the vehicle for taking over, taking responsibility under the Community Challenge fund for maintenance of grounds in the Nairn area. The consultant is going to help us in our discussions with Highland Council Community Services department to work out what maybe the parcel of work that the enterprise can take on and will also help us with developing a business plan and submission for funds to our advantage to get the enterprise rolling.”

Simon went on to say that they were under quite a lot of pressure to meet community enterprise target dates and the timetable wasn’t clear but the aim was to establish a social enterprise as soon as an agreement could be agreed with Highland Council’s Community Challenge fund. 

Chair of River CC, Tommy Hogg, said to Simon: “I was quite surprised you said it was just for the grass cutting, I was under the impression that it was actually for the benefit of the riverside.”

Simon said: “What we agreed at the River Enterprise meeting a couple of meetings ago, that would be either July or August, was that our first target was to establish the enterprise on the basis of the Community Challenge Fund. Then we would be aiming to move on to expand the activity of the enterprise to include the riverside regeneration project and also the recycling and reuse project.”

Simon Noble was quizzed about the remit of the consultant, when the minutes of the enterprise would be in the public domain and if the consultant was local. There seemed to be a desire on the behalf of River CC members to know more about their first born satellite organisation. Good to know what your bairns are doing out there perhaps?