If you can’t make it along to our Road Show events, you can get a flavour for the event here. We have 14 boards, from an introduction to an ‘anything else’, with lots of back ground information that will help to inform your thoughts and comments on the future development of Nairn and Nairnshire. If you have any ideas that are not specifically development linked, but ideas for the betterment of Nairnshire, we’d still love to hear them.
Please do leave your comments as you read through, just like our events, or, take our consultation online survey.
Hello and welcome to our community consultation Road Show. The next 13 boards will take you through Nairn and Nairnshire. We will give you some key statistics, some of these you may know already. We will ask you questions and you can leave your comments here, or, if you would prefer, you can take our online survey.
Boards 2 and 3 are basic demographic studies to help us understand where our participating community is living, and how old you are. This data is not linked or personalised and is madly sticking a coloured dot to our boards. The Boards are filing up already!
Board 4 is the underlying Local Development Plan that our Local Place Plan responds to. When any future planning application is tabled for development in any of Nairnshire, the application is compared to the Local Development Plan, to the National Planning Framework 4, and crucially, the Local Place Plan. This is where our development and spatial feedback will really help to quite literally shape the future of Nairn.
In this Board 4, the Reporter has for the Local Place Plan to replace the Development Brief. Any future development brief, or Local Place Plan, may consider the Common Good ownership of the site too.
This means that your comments on NA04 Sandown, and NA06 East of the Retail Park, and all of the proposed sites, is absolutely crucial.
Development of NA05 Nairn East has been removed pending suitable infrastructure, generally characterised by the Nairn By Pass. This week, the By Pass has moved forward another step with consultation signs now posted on the route. Who knows, the By Pass may be a part of the next 10 years!
Board 5 includes some key maps, including the A9 Nairn By Pass preferred route.
Board 6 would love to hear your aspiration for Nairn. How would you see the town develop its character and sense of community in the next 10 years? Do you have a master plan that puts Nairn on the map? Do you see the town becoming a busy employment hub?
Board 7 – did you know that the Highland’s population was projected to continue to reduce over the term of the Local Development Plan? How does this fit for your measure of the size of Nairnshire’s town?
Board 8 – Housing. Is this your hot topic for the Local Place Plan? It is a fundamental objective of the Local Development Plan and the Local Place Plan. What do you think on building more houses, or not? And what kind?
Board 9 asks your thoughts on Jobs and Business. Nairn, like the Highlands, suffers from a ‘brain drain’, was our young folk move away for studies, for work, and to see the world. A lot do come back, but often with a young family when they are mature and settled. Our community has the largest over retirement age group in the Highlands. Should anything be done to create jobs? How would you approach this growing challenge?
Board 10 Public Infrastructure – from schools and health to the hidden infrastructure of sewers, connectivity, and flood defences. Did you know that 3 of our 5 school rolls are forecast to grow over the period of the Local Development Plan? The Reporter, in their examination of the Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan 2, noted that the hidden infrastructure would not be commented on as those service providers would scale up services to meet any additional demand of future development, but, what do you think? National Planning Framework 4 puts infrastructure before development, rather than behind…how will this work out for the future of Nairn and the risk posed by climate change?
Board 11. Nairn’s town centre. What do you think? What would you do with it?
Board 12 Getting Around. How do you do it? What could be done to improve our active and green networks throughout Nairnshire?
Board 13 – our green spaces and recreation spaces cross over with a lot of our Common Good lands. How would you improve, encourage use, interlink, or develop our green spaces to boost Nairn’s leisure and recreation spaces?
Board 14 – you’ve made it! But what do you think? What else could be done? What would you do to keep Nairnshire sustainable, viable, vibrant and ready for the next 10 years and beyond?
You can take the survey, comment below, drop us a line at lpp@nicenairn.org.uk or call in and see us on Thursday’s at the Nairn Community and Arts Centre.
– Shipping container based pop-up or permanent businesses – could perhaps be located near the marina, riverside or elsewhere. It could start off with just a couple of temporary containers as a pilot and if successful it’s easily scalable – you just add more containers above / to the sides as required – an example of where this has transformed an area is Wapping Wharf in Bristol; https://www.wappingwharf.co.uk
– Permanent cinema, like the one in Cromarty, or perhaps convert Mack’s bar?(looks like it might have been a picturehouse in the past…).
– Weekly or monthly market – this could be held in the farmer’s showground or along the high street (closed off to cars).
– Sell disused buildings to private developers at a heavy discount if the council haven’t put them to good use in a reasonable timeframe (arguably that time has passed!).
– Basketball court next to the gym.
– Turn the burned down flats in the marina into a proper water sports centre, extending the existing sailing club – hire of kayaks, kayak tours, structured RYA courses, PADI diving qualifications etc etc.
– Allow people in Fishertown to paint their houses without getting planning permission – it’d brighten the place up! – if this needs to be controlled, pre-approve a set of paint colours for people to pick from.
– Ask Tresspass to take down their ‘Closing for refurbishment’ sign! It’s been up for years.
– Offer significant business rate cuts / holidays to prospective entrepreneurs to take on empty shopping units.
– Nairn needs a new dentist, there aren’t enough.
– Organise more weekend events to attract visitors – festivals etc.