Gurn fashion prediction for 2018 - sand and gravel is out but next year rocks will be big!
Let's rock on! All go at the harbour as a temporary repair goes ahead. Sand and gravel oot now rocks are in. A million campervan owners breathe a sigh of relief?
3 possible options for the harbour.
ReplyDelete1. Patch up job, cross fingers and hope it will do
2. Repair the whole harbour
3. Do nothing, fill it in - great place for the camper vans!
Wonder which one will be the final outcome?
Does that mean we can park down at the front again? I'm having withdrawal symptons not being able to park there and do my knitting or whatever!
ReplyDeleteI don't have a motorhome, just my wee car :)
that's the beginning of the end for the harbour,just fill it in and make much needed car parking,the folk with boats can go to inverness,
ReplyDeleteAnother temporary fix - bet its for a long time. Now to dig up the whole road and fix the missing filler that has washed away. Could have subsided at an time I suppose so just as well the sheet piling wall collapsed or a car could have gone in. hope funding can be found and it can be fixed before summer but not holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteWait a minute is that a sink hole in the road that has appeared since the Gurn took that picture?
ReplyDeleteAn improvised quick job using some rocks and a JCB is all very well as a temporary fix. But there are serious issues here. It would be good to see the local civic leaders of Nairn (who they? - Ed) seeking, and getting, some proper explanations. For example:
ReplyDelete1) since the Highland Council own and run Nairn harbour, and (as the sailors complain) have been steadily ratcheting up the fees and charges, has the Council set aside the revenue thus raised into a maintenance and repair budget allocation to cover the costs of a rolling programme which - logically - would have to include the gradual replacement of ageing and rusting piling panels?
2) If so, how much has been set aside for such a programme?
3) if not, why not, and what has the money raised from harbour users been spent on?
There's a wider issue. How come the Highland Council seems unable to find the money to look after or replace key elements of local infrastructure such as the White Bridge on the Cawdor-Croy road, they can't find a few grand to replace the Paddling Pool, and they let Nairn harbour deteriorate so badly...... But yet they were ready to blow £700k on straightening a road (the Leafy Bends) which was perfectly serviceable; have spent and lost huge sums on unviable schemes (CHP) and vanity projects (Housing Expo); and have loaned £millions to the Airport Business Park which they now seem to admit they will never recover.
The harbour collapse is just another symptom of a more fundamental problem. Local people, and local Councillors, need to be asking awkward questions about Council priorities, budget-planning and financial competence.
@Count Ability
ReplyDeleteThe question goes much further. There's money to repair/refurbish the likes of the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace. Build the High Speed rail link etc, none of this in Scotland
But back to the harbour. A generous guesstimate would be that HC earns £100k from harbour dues. Pretty much peanuts when it comes to the work that the Nairn harbour now needs
The recent dredging was with the idea of installing more pontoons which would equal a greater income
I'm sure most harbour users would have preferred to see the river dredged as even with all the silt in the harbour they're more limited by that than than water levels in the harbour. Too late now
Using rocks as a solution is the beginning of the end. Only so many you can use before the harbour's filled in!
There also has to be a question mark over the sustainability of the whole harbour and pier structure. The next subsidence could see people go down with it, and the only real way of knowing the state of the road/harbour is to dig up the road and remove the heavily corroded steel cladding. Not going to happen
Still, I look forward to visiting the restored buildings in London
@ Anon of 6:05 pm.
ReplyDeleteQuite agree with your additional comments about the state of the harbour, the dredging and all that. But it's an irrelevant distraction and a cop-out to suggest that, in effect, "....it's all Westminster's fault".
First, it's not as if there's no capital expenditure north of the Border. How much did the new Queensferry Bridge cost? The trams in Edinburgh? The dualling of many more miles of the A9? Not to mention the expenditure on the Holyrood Parliament building itself.....
But let's get this into perspective. Nairn harbour isn't a public structure in that league, so that sort of parallel is pointless. The harbour is a local facility. It's the responsibility of the local Council. Whatever the revenue from fees and charges - and let's go along with the £100k figure (presumably per annum?) - multiply that by the number of years the Council has been collecting that sort of money and it adds up to a pretty decent sum. The point is - have they been spending the necessary money on annual upkeep of the structure?
My guess is that the harbour is collapsing (and now needing major and very costly repair) because sufficient regular ongoing maintenance hasn't been done. Just as the Forth Rail Bridge had to be constantly repainted to stop it rusting, the panels/cladding/paving etc at the harbour and pier ought to have been systematically checked and replaced in stages over a number of years. Failure to do that has now resulted in a much more serious problem.
This ain't rocket science, it's just common sense. Which seems to be in short supply.....
Highland Council needs marching off the end of the pier.
ReplyDeleteLooks like this temporary measure is to prevent further damage only. Doubt the council will repair the road until a proper repair is made to the wall which will be unlikely in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThe harbour has been neglected for years while boaters are charged nearly the highest fees for an authority harbour for nothing more than a place to tie up. Every year the fees go up by nearly 10% making it affordable for the average boater and no doubt challenging for the yacht owner. Are the council charging with the harbour closed?
I expect the harbour and the car park to be closed for a very long time.
Where are the local councillors? Not sure it would matter as they have sat back and allowed the neglect and price gouging for years.
Latest Gurn article (it may be appropriate for folk coming into this page from various places and not seeing the latest):
ReplyDeleteTom Heggie tells the Gurn that Harbour road will reopen.
This observer bumped into Tom Heggie today and he told the Gurn that the necessary works down at the harbour come under the title "emergency repairs" and will have to be done. He told us the road would have to reopen.
Tom, a relatively new councillor, has been consulting his colleague Liz MacDonald who for sometime has been Nairn's representative on the Highland Council Harbours Management Board.
PS over 2,300 visits to this page, Gurnites are certainly finding the issues concerning the harbour interesting.