The Highland Council is today (12 March 2019) launching a 12 week consultation giving the community until 5 June 2019 to comment on the proposed contents of the Common Good Fund Asset Register.
Section 102 Community Empowerment (Scotland) 2015 states that before establishing a Common Good Asset Register the Council must first conduct a public consultation on a list of property (buildings, land, artwork, regalia and funds) it is proposing to include.
The Council is keen to involve the community in this process to ensure that all Highland Common Good property is identified and included. Community Councils and community bodies will be notified and invited to make representations. However, the list will be widely publicised and available for public representations to be made. The Council must investigate and respond to any representations received. Local authorities must also have in place a process for regular review of the Asset Register once published.
The property lists for the Common Good Funds of Cromarty, Dingwall, Dornoch, Fortrose and Rosemarkie, Invergordon, Inverness, Nairn and Tain; and guidance are available at:
Please submit written responses either by email to:
...or by post to:
Sara Murdoch, The Highland Council HQ, Glenurquhart Road, Inverness, IV3 5NX.
All consultation representations, responses and any final decision will be published on the Council website.
Gurn note: you can download the asset list for Nairn from the Link above but there is a PDF document you can view here online if you simply wish to browse.
Great job, well done.
ReplyDeleteThis should not have taken as long.
The Burgh and the District Councils and their Councillors should have had this all in order before Highland Council inherited responsibility.
I'm not sure that it will be 100% accurate and I think any queries raised by any of the older Nairnites should be thoroughly investigated.
If any patch of land in Nairn is identified as being "possibly Common Good" then it should be claimed by the Common Good until any alternative Title Deeds are found.
The District Councils were responsible for their respective Common Good Accounts and their records were excellent. I know because I audited them every year.
ReplyDeleteThe Regional Council had no Common Good Accounts.
At local government reorganisation in 1995, the District Councils were abolished and the new Highland Council took responsibility for all of the Common Good Accounts and controlled the whole assembly, as they still do, from their Inverness Headquarters.
Result: All the expert local knowledge went out the window, and goodness knows what The Highland Council did with the District Councils' records.
Cradlehall
ReplyDeleteWe need to bring back proper local, Local Government to Scotland.
Highland is the size of, and has the complexity of a small country - not a county or region. It is such a pity that previous Labour and Tory governments at Westminster did away with our old town and county (and District) councils.
For many, many functions, Nairnshire is of sufficient size to manage its own social housing, leisure and recreation - and potentially many others, such as community care. Nairn used to have its own Police Force back in the day.
Managing its own resources within the Common Good should be straightforward.
However, I'm not convinced that the old Nairn District Council did manage its Common Good assets as well as you suggest.
Forty five years ago when I came to live in Nairnshire there were rumblings about the Common Good Fund for the area. Over the years since it has periodically re-emerged as an issue.In the main it has been about the uses to which the assets and the asset value might be utilised. The Highland Council has been a regular visitor to this issue. It has been dressed as a genuine proposal to provide benefit to Nairn. I seem to remember that this Nairn centric approach has also been an issue emerging on previous occasions. If the fund was created for the benefit of Nairnshire, then the whole population of voting age should have a right to vote on how the fund is used. Anything less would be totally un-democratic and therefore wrong. We need to go higher up the food chain and stop this.
ReplyDelete