Subbies and Westies merger – the omens are good but will River CC ever come to the party?

Last Tuesday night saw a meeting organised by Highland Council to canvass public feeling on the proposed merger between Suburban and West Community Councils. The meeting took place in Nairn Academy. It all went very well with Dick Youngson of Suburban and Rosemary Young of West explaining  how they have effectively worked together so far and how a merger would benefit their respective communities. Those members of the public present also echoed those positive views. 

Rosemary Young mentioned how five years ago Nairn West had been a defunct community council and was resurrected by the current crop of councillors. She said: 

“Nairn West was formed, from the outset it was always my wish and also the wish of my colleagues on the community council that we should form one community council for the town. We did in fact have some early meetings with the three community councils which William Gillfillan chaired very expertly and we came to the conclusion at that point that we weren’t ready for that sort of action. This would in fact still be my ultimate goal but at the present time it seems well in the distance.”

A little later Dick Youngson outlined how local community councils have to work together to deal with some of the issues facing the town and how there was no way that a community council could now work in isolation to what was happening with their neighbours. Dick also would like to see a single council for the town one day, he said:

“We’d dearly love to get Nairn River to work with us but that is not going to happen at the moment, they want to remain as they are but time might change things. In the meantime we will work well and we’ll liaise with Nairn River on everything that happens.”

David Hass, of Highland Council, in the chair, said at the end of the meeting:

“We respect the work that is done here and the efforts that are made. So the message we will be taking back to our report is a very positive message about the request and we will be setting that message out in a report that will go to Council.”