Kennel Cough in the Nairn area.

Moray Coast Vets are reporting a high number of cases of Kennel Cough in the area at the moment.

They said, 

"Kennel cough is an umbrella term given to a number of different viruses and bacteria that cause an infectious cough in dogs. They attack the lining of a dog's respiratory tract causing inflammation resulting in irritation and a dry cough. In the majority of cases this is self limiting and is much like us having a cold.

It is highly contagious however. Dogs can be infected via airborne spread, direct contact with infected dogs or indirect contact with things infected dogs have slobbered on eg toys and bowls. An infected dog tends to be contagious for 2 weeks and may still cough in this time or may not. 

If your dog has kennel cough it is not an emergency. Like the human cold it very rarely needs treatment. In majority of cases they will recover uneventfully with TLC and wetting dry food so as to limit discomfort on the throat.

There is no need to seek veterinary attention unless this cough is ongoing for over a week or if your dog is off food or listless.

If your dog is infected it would be good idea to isolate them from other dogs as much as possible for 2 weeks-eg avoiding groomers, vets, and popular walking areas.

There is a kennel cough vaccine available, It doesn't provide a 100% protection but will reduce the severity and duration of signs should your dog get infected. We'd recommend the vaccine for dogs most at risk ie those mixing with a lot of dogs for example attending classes, dog walkers, groomers etc."

Plans for Albyn supported housing development off Cawdor Road thrown out by councillors

Watch the video of the debate at the Highland Council planning meeting below:

The P&J reported:

"Members of the south planning committee went to the site of the proposed 10-unit Albyn Housing development in Cawdor Road before making their decision.

They witnessed considerable noise from the neighbouring sawmill, and agreed that a 16ft high fence proposed to mitigate noise from the sawmill would be inadequate to reduce noise in the development."

More here

Never mind the General Election - who's going to get on River Community Council? 21 nominations for 12 seats - postal ballot to be held and pre-paid envelope must be back by 12 noon Weds 4th December

Fissures of electoral excitement spreading through the town as the hopefuls for the new Nairn River Community Council term of office are revealed.

Unless there are withdrawals then there will be quite a long ballot paper for voters in the River CC area (Comhairle Coimhearsnachd Abhainn Narann - Representing Lochloy, Merryton, Boath Park, River Park, Broadhill, Fishertown, The High Street area, Mill Rd/Church Street, Cawdor Rd, Queenspark and Firhall). 

According to the Highland Council website the names of candidates nominated are:

Hamish Donald Bain
Steven James Bain
Paul Cutress
Ann Fuller
Stephen Kenneth Fuller

Peter Gibson
Ian Ramsay Gordon
Helena Harcourt
Ian Michael Henderson
Tommy Hogg
Mandy Lawson
Veronica Mackinnon
Louis Anderson McIntosh
Paul Carlo McIvor
Linda Morton
Simon Noble
Paul Oldham
Jim Ross
Stewart Hunter Stansfield
David Fraser Thomson
Katrina Ann Woods

The Council also state: "At the close of the Nomination period for the above election, the number of candidates validly exceeded the total maximum permitted membership as specified for the Community Council area. An election will now take place and each elector will be entitled to vote for a number of candidates up to 12. Ballot papers will be issued by post to all registered electors in their community council area and must be returned in the pre-paid envelope provided by 12 noon on Wednesday, 4 December 2019."

There will be no contest on Nairn West and Suburban as the number of candidates was equal to or below the number of councillors to be returned.

The successful candidates are:

Sheena Baker
Jimmy Ferguson
John Alan Hampson
Ally MacDonald
Lorraine Mallinson
Alastair Luckington Noble
Brian Edward Stewart
Bill Young
Richard Youngson

Update, after close of nominations and withdrawal period there will now be 20 candidates for the River CC election. Paul Oldham must have withdraw his nomination. 

Highland Council's new car-parking policy "It's going to be a hard sell to our local communities"

We've quoted Cllr Peter Sagers in the headline above. More details, in a moment, on where to find what Nairn Councillors had to say at a Highland Council committee meeting yesterday.

Here's what the Press and Journal had to say in advance of the meeting:

" A new policy is being proposed to resolve the bitterly-contested issue of car parking charges.

Decisions about parking charges in Highland Council’s area would be decided by local communities, who will choose where the fees will be implemented and how much to charge.

They would also be able to choose how much of the revenue raised would stay locally and even have the right to refuse to implement charges if they choose.

The council’s area committees would assume responsibility for the decisions made and for implementing them." More here. 

After fast-forwarding the web-cast to see what Nairn Councillors had to say and dipping in and out of other parts of an almost 3 hour long video, this observer (making an unscientific guess) would perhaps imagine that at some time in the not too distant future we might see parking charges in some areas of the town but not the town centre with proceeds being split between the Council and the local community. 

You can try to a certain extent to read the runes from what people have to say but, over and above that, surely it would be total madness to implement car parking charges in the town centre when Balmakeith is about to expand into almost an alternative High Street with free parking?

So here's the webcast readers. Liz speaks at 37.12 into the vid and also at 2.28.55 and Cllr Peter Saggers at 1.24.16. Maybe others from Nairn spoke but didn't see them as I moved forward looking to see who was making contributions. Warning - there is a lot of Council-speak in the webcast and sometimes life can be too short to listen to too much of that!

Cash boost for Nairn Play

Nairn BID looking for applications for two important projects - but, as a community, are we simply giving Highland Council the chance to abdicate more responsibilities?

You can read the Nairn BID imformation on two projects they are inviting applications for here. 

The Gurn wishes to comment on this section of the page though:

"At the moment we are looking to deep clean 3 main areas of Nairn:

Castle Square

The corner where the high street meets Leopold street and

The vennels leading to the high street"

Sorry folks but Highland Council should be pressured into looking after these areas properly, it is what they receive our council tax for. This just shifts responsibility to members of the BID to pay for what they and other citizens are already contributing to in their Council Tax. Highland Council should be keeping all our streets and public spaces clean - especially the town centre - it should be spotless!

Could we be forgiven for thinking Highland Council has given up looking after areas of the town?

The BID should surely do new things for Nairn, not let the Council off the hook - those areas should never have been allowed to get into a state where they need a deep clean! Councillors should have ensured everything was up to date. 

"Tha an uair an àirde" An Taigh-cùirte Inbhir Narann ​​17 Dàmhair 2019 - "Time's up" The Courthouse Nairn, 17th October 2019

Individual images here

Nairn SNP activist awarded "President's Prize" at Aberdeen party conference

XR Nairn Extincion of Species protest conga on the High Street

Nairn Extinction rebellion were on the High Street this morning with a conga protest highlighting mass extinction of species. The rebels set off from the Community Centre and did a circuit of the High Street via a "die-in" at the Leopold Street corner.

Pictures below in flickr sideshow, individual images here. 

And a video of today's protest

Slow response to call for nominations for Community Councils across Highland Council area - election date put back

The text from an e-mail from Highland Council concerning the forthcoming community council elections has been surfacing in Nairn social media circles. We reproduce it here for the attention of all serious students of Community Council matters. 

"Due to a slow response to the call for nominations across the Highland Council area, the deadline for nominations has now been extended to 12 noon on Tuesday 29th October.

The Election date has therefore been changed to Wednesday 4 December 2019 and not 20 November 2019 as was previously advised.

Existing Community Councils will continue in place until 11.59 on Tuesday 3rd December."

Here at the Gurn we believe that a large measure of this slow input maybe because many Community Councillors may feel that they and their communities have been ignored by Highland Council and recent moves towards "localism" have had little or no effect. Thus, quite a few might be packing it in and other citizens feel less than motivated to get involved as an effective way of getting things done for their community. 

In Nairn too of course we had this ( Nairn River Community Council told it has to shut down by Highland Council ) and whatever the rights and wrongs of it it left a bad taste in its wake. Perhaps people feel too that if they want to achieve anything then perhaps single issue campaigns are the best way forward such as the ship to ship oil transfers campaign of getting behind Nairn BID in its stop the car parking charges. 

Efforts are being made on social media to encourage citizens to stand for Nairn's Community Council but it remains to be seen if enough candidates will come forward to fill all 23 vacancies. 

Nominations open for first Nairn Civic Recognition Awards

Highland Council Press Release:

"A new award to highlight the large amount of voluntary work that is carried out in Nairnshire has been launched this week.

People are being invited to nominate individuals or groups who have previously gone unrecognised for doing charitable work within their communities in the Nairnshire area.

Nominations can be made across 6 categories including: sports, arts/music, environment, community, enterprise and young people.

Nominees must be resident in Nairnshire; or their actions or activities have resulted in a significant benefit to the population of Nairnshire; and they must be nominated for their voluntary efforts. Paid employees are not eligible.

These new civic awards have been created in partnership by The Lord-Lieutenant of Nairnshire and Nairn Highland Councillors; and a decision-making panel comprising a group of local people including the Lord- Lieutenant’s office, Highland Council representation and other local groups.

An awards ceremony will take place in late January 2020 in Nairn.

Lord-Lieutenant of Nairnshire, George Asher said:

“We understand there are many unsung heroes among us in our communities who give a massive amount of their time and effort voluntarily to groups or individuals in their neighborhoods. We want to thank those people who put others before themselves and acknowledge the huge contributions that they make to the wellbeing of Nairnshire. You know who they are, so please nominate them!”

Councillor Tom Heggie, Chair of The Highland Council’s Nairnshire Committee added:

“Highland Council is very grateful to the voluntary efforts of people who make a difference in their communities. Nairnshire Councillors are pleased to support this new Civic Award scheme and we look forward to celebrating the achievements of those who give selflessly to their community.”

Nomination application forms are available from The Highland Council Service Point, in the Courthouse, High Street, Nairn or can be downloaded at this link.

The awards are being funded by The Highland Council’s Nairn Ward Discretionary Budget."

XR talk, "Heading for Extinction" Monday 14th October 7 pm Nairn Community Centre

The Post Office moving to McColls: “A marriage of two ugly ducklings to make a swan”?

This observer went over to the consultation meeting in the Community Centre this evening. There were two high heid yins from McColls and another two folk from the Post Office, also present were three members of the public (myself included) and a reporter from the Leopold Street Gazette. The quote in the title of this article comes from one of the Post Office folk.

The low attendance prompted a few questions from the two ladies who had turned up and they suggested that there had been inadequate publicity for the event. Here at the Gurn we weren't sure when this meeting was coming up and it was this post in the popular Nairn Rocks Facebook pages that alerted us to the exact time and date but there may have been other information out there that we didn't see. We would anticipate that quite a few folk saw the mention on Facebook but perhaps 5.30 was a very inconvenient time for many. 

Nairn folk are used to consultation, it usually means that someone comes along, listens to what you have to say and then goes away and decides to give you what they intended anyway – or to be fair that is the historical perception, it may have mellowed more recently perhaps with outcomes being altered here and there in the community's favour. This consultation was about the Post Office moving to McColls and obviously people had other ideas about where the Post Office could go – they weren't aware though that there are no other options, it is McColls or nowhere – no one else has expressed an interest.

The present Postmaster that runs the agency in Nairn has been trying to get rid of his commitment for some time and according to the PO officials present it is now coming to the point where he will be unable to continue. It is obvious that running a Post Office is not as financially rewarding as it used to be. It is a changing world according to the officials, with the Post Office only owning one of the services they provide (postal orders) and they have to bid against rival providers for the other services. With McColls too cigarettes and newspapers are not the major earners they used to be with with less users and readers and competing businesses nearby – having a Post Office in their shop would help make their business outlet in Nairn be more profitable. A marriage of convenience beckons for the two in Nairn?

Nothing is settled yet, there are access issues to be sorted and both McColls and the Post Office will go away and consider what has been raised in Nairn before coming to a decision. The worst case scenario is that we could lose both the Post Office and McColls but all the high heid yins there tonight are hopeful the move will happen.

We live in changing times Gurnites, the consultation was, in fact, about a fait accompli but perhaps it could be a benign fait accompli and maybe things will work out fine with a Post Office in McColls even with the issue of the size of the shop. It seems to be working elsewhere, according to the officials there tonight, both in other branches of McColls and in other businesses. It's a changing world, changing so fast really in terms of cash and where we can get it and what we do with it so that perhaps in the future, a post office might be the last place we can get some?