50K from Common Good Fund to bail out Community Centre?

Our four Highland Councillors will soon be making a decision on whether to bail out the Community Centre with £50,000 from the Nairn Common Good Fund.

Cllr Paul Oldham writes in his latest weekly newsletter here:

"We find ourselves in this situation because directors of the charity revealed to ward councillors three and a half weeks ago that it has been running at a loss for some years and has been relying on draining down its reserves to keep itself afloat. This is not financially sustainable and by the time we were made aware they only had funds to keep going for a few more weeks, after which they would be unable to pay staff so the centre would have to close."

 A lot more about this and other issues on Paul's site here. 

Nairn Town and County Bike shed

The staff at Nairn Town and County hospital are delighted they now have a new lockable bike shed with capacity for 10 bikes thanks to funding from Cycling Scotland. This frees up the other cycle racks for patients. Cycling is already popular in Nairn as it is relatively flat and cycle routes such as the one past Nairn Academy and another over the Jubilee Bridge and onwards to Auldearn provide convenient, largely off- road access to the hospital from many parts of Nairn. Anne Thomas, a Speech and language therapist based at the hospital, said: "I cycle to Inverness Station and put my folding bike on the train and can then cycle to visits in the town and to my office in the hospital. It keeps me fit and reduces my carbon footprint and is a good example to the kids I visit. If more staff and patients did the same it would have a positive impact on people's health and carbon footprint and also help reduce pressure on the car park.”