Conversation replaces conflict – Community Council documents demonstrate positive relationship with the new set up of Highland Councillors locally

 The Gurn has received three documents: previous minutes, next agenda (Monday 31^st October) and comments on the Inner MorayFirth Local Development plant.

The minutes demonstrate the ongoing positive conversations but it’s the last document that is worth a serious read, a vision of how things might be if the community got more control of it’s own affairs: there’s comment on Sandown, Nairn East, Nairn South and a few other issues. An outline of what sort of town we are and how it all can be improved. Warnings too of the dangers of over-development without infrastructure.

Given the recent discussions between Community and Highland Councillors, it looks like things are moving forward in a positive direction with the potential for a locally made plan that is indeed “local” – it all comes at a time when we face another period of austerity however. But even when money is short there are still inventive ways that resources can be used or prioritised. Time to be optimistic about our civic affairs and what we can do collectively to improve Nairn as a place to live, work and play?

Well worth taking a few minutes to have a look at the documents linked above.

£500 plus to change a flag up at the Courthouse?

 Readers may have seen cherry pickers being used to change the flag(s) on the pole(s) at the Courthouse since the building was renovated. Apparently it is not very easy or impossible to raise or take a flag down from within the building. Readers may wish to correct the Gurn if we are wrong but we believe that it was decided that flagpoles at the top of the building could damage the structure, hence their new location. The days of sending someone up through the hatch to change a flag are gone and the new position of the pole presents an insurmountable difficulty it seems - unless you have a cherry picker.
This is where a cost comes in - obviously an internal cost to Highland Council but that will mean money that could be spent elsewhere in Nairn has to go on getting a cherry picker in. 

The Gurn wonders what the total cost of cherrypickers for all the flag changes during the year is and whether some engineering solution to install flagpoles to their original location might be cheaper in the longer or even shorter term. It's a problem not of at least three of our councillors making, but I would imagine they too might have noticed the cherry-picker in action and wondered about how it goes through the books and whether there is a better solution?

You may wish to pop over to the ever-popular Nairn when you were a bairn Facebook page and have a look at what Murd has to say in relation to the response to a figure of £500-600 contained in the response to his Freedom of Information Request.

Nairn River CC public meeting Wed 19th Oct 7pm Community and Arts Centre

 More details here on the NRCC site.