Local Place Plan

The Local Place Plan meeting, “A Deliverable Vision for Nairn”, on 10 November was attended by around 130 people.  Reporting on the meeting in an email to local Councillors, NWSCC Chairman said, “We all agreed that Nairnshire has vast potential with a lot of untapped resources and that we need a clear Vision of what Nairnshire should be. All present supported working together to deliver this Vision.
There was unanimous support for taking forward a properly funded LPP to ensure it reflected the genuine views and interests of Nairnshire residents and that the current potentially damaging and unsatisfactory IMFLDP for Nairn should be halted until an LPP is produced in 2023. 
There was also unanimous support for asking all our Councillors to delay approval of the IMFLDP at the 15th November Area Committee Meeting to allow the community to progress a fully considered LPP in 2023 which will then underpin a community-supported Local Development Plan.”  Keynote slide presentation is linked here.

Options Appraisal for the Regeneration of Nairn’s King St.

A Local Place Plan

Public meeting to discuss A Nairn Local Place Plan

Nairn Community & Arts Centre

10 November 2022 at 7.30 PM

A G E N D A

  • 1. Welcome AN
  • 2. Introduction to Local Place Planning
    (Slides 2,3)                     AN
  • 3. Infrastructure (Slide 4) AN/ML
  • 4. Business and Employment Growth (Slide 5) AJ/CG
  • 5. Town Centre Regeneration and Rejuvenation (Slide 6)     HB
  • 6. Future Development and Vision for Nairn (Slide 7)
  • Drew Hendry MP – A Deliverable Vision for Nairn
  • Tibor Bandula – A 21st Century Town Centre
  • Sam Hey – Team Hamish – Links redevelopment
  • 7. IMFLDP (Slides 8,9)         HB
  • 8. Closing and Thanks (Slide 10)         AN

AN is Alastair Noble Chair NICE and Nairn West & Suburban CC

ML is Mandy Lawson Secretary NICE and River CC

AJ is Adrian Johnstone Managing Director GF JOB

CG is Caroline Gardner Managing Director Tulloch’s Sawmill

Hamish Bain is Chair Nairn River CC and Director NICE

Drew Hendry MP has led the Inverness Vision Work

Tibor Bandula has written the RARUS Report on Regeneration of Town Centre

Sam Hey leads Team Hamish work and is Treasurer of NICE

NICE AGM Notice

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the eighth ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING of the above company will be held  in person at 7.00 pm on Tuesday 20th September 2022 in the MultiPurpose Room at Nairn Community and Arts Centre for the purpose of the following essential business:

AGENDA

1 Welcome & Introduction.

2 Minute of last Annual General Meeting  

3 Presentation of Accounts for the year ended 30 November 2021

4 Annual Review – Chairman’s Report

5 Appointment of Directors

  • The following Directors will retire by rotation as provided by the Articles of the Company : Alastair Noble, John Hart, Sam Hey, Hamish Bain, Hazel Clark 
    All the above are agreeable to be reappointed
  • 2  Directors – Michael Barnett and Iain Fairweather who retired as Directors since the last AGM will not be standing again

6 Invitation for NICE members to help contribute to development of a community led Local Place Plan for Nairnshire

7 Any Other Business

A copy of the company’s Accounts for the year ended 30 November 2021, the Minute of the previous AGM and the Chair’s Report are available under Documents & Meeting Notes above.

Members are encouraged to appoint a proxy to vote on their behalf if they are unable to attend in person.  Please use the link at the top of the panel on the right.

A New Future for the Old Social Work Building?

Previous attempts to bring the OSWB back into use for some community purpose have not been successful. Following very helpful discussions with the Ward Manager and The Nairnshire Area Committee , the Committee agreed on 8th March to allocate £5,000 to NICE as a contribution towards the cost of an engineer’s report and then feasibility study. The relevant section of that Committee report is below for ease of reference: 6.3.3 Nairnshire visitor & experience centre and Regeneration Hub – Old Social Work Office – Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise (NICE)
This proposal seeks a contribution towards costs for an engineer’s survey report on the condition building which if positive would be followed by a feasibility study into the proposal above for a Nairnshire visitor & experience centre and Regeneration Hub. It is also proposed that previous surveys carried out on the condition of the building by the Council in 2016 will be shared to inform this work. It is proposed to allocate £5,000 towards the work proposed by NICE to obtain an updated engineers survey report followed by a feasibility study into this proposal. This award would be subject to the Council’s normal grant conditions.

Nairn Community Spa & Lido

NICE Directors’ at their Board Meeting on 15 Nov 2021 reinforced their commitment to fully supporting the initiatives envisioned by the Nairn Community Spa & Lido (NCSL) Project, under NICE’s Sustainable Energy Projects banner, especially in respect of regenerating our Nairn Swimming Pool(NSwP).  The NCSL project aims to modernise the NSwP to achieve a zero carbon based facility, using alternative energy sources, in conjunction with a new coastline Spa Lido complex, to attract tourism to Nairn (as experienced with the new Hamish Splash Pool) and Hydrotherapy pools, for the health and wellbeing of the Nairn community. All these facilities will also benefit from the advantages of thermal heat and heat exchangers, below the sea and in the seafront rock bed. Check the link https://nairnspandlido.org for full details. NICE has written in support of NCSL’s application to the SSE Renewables Sustainable development fund for the funding of a Project Manager. These combined initiatives are offered in full support as benefit to the Nairn and the Nairnshire Community.

Place Planning and Investment Model

NICE Directors’ recently reinforced their commitment to supporting two new initiatives launched by Scottish Government – ‘Place Principle’ and the Capital investment for regeneration. Check the links for full details. NICE has written via email to elected representatives urging participation in these initiatives and offering full support for the benefit of Nairn and Nairnshire.

Regeneration email
Following our NICE Director’s meeting last night, we welcome the opportunity to work with Highland Council on the regeneration of Nairn’s Town Centre. We all agree that this a great opportunity to regenerate the town centre and bring back into use many of the buildings that are empty and/or need a new use.

We would like to look at the best use of town centre buildings undertaken by the BID (Bob Ferenth and Sheena Baker) and the HC. This would mean identifying all the properties and deciding what is best use for them. It would also identify which buildings we cannot see a realistic use for and agreeing a replacement plan for the building or vacant site including structural/feasibility studies where needed.

Government policy is to revitalise centres and make them vibrant and successful. They must also be green and sustainable and have a lot more people living and working in them.

We welcome this policy and know that, working together, we can produce the town centre we all want to see and help meet the housing need that has been identified for Nairn.

Happy to discuss further and help in any way we can. We think the town centre regeneration initiatives will be the best use of the Place  Based Investment Funds. Do you agree?

Place Planning Model:

At last night’s NICE Director’s meeting we discussed the benefit to Nairn and Nairnshire of using the new Place Planning model to deliver a Nairn and a Nairnshire Local Place Plan. We agreed that this would give the strategic framework necessary before prioritising the various projects and above all making sure they are delivered.

NICE will play its part as a community – controlled body for Nairn, as defined by the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015, working with the Community Councils.

We think the starting point would be to agree the statutory DATA sets with Highland Council for population and housing needs assessment. This would mean building on the work we are doing with Scott Dalgarno. Douglas Chisholm and Mike Atkinson – underway before Covid interrupted – how best can we do this together?

The Scottish Government is very supportive of this model, and we have had a lot of preliminary discussions with them and HC about this. We look forward to delivering this Local Place Plan and think it is win, win for Nairnshire if we all work together to agree and deliver it

Happy to discuss further and make sure we all benefit from this exciting future for Nairnshire

Finishing Touches for All Abilities Path

In a joint project between RSPB, Nairn Improvement Community Enterprise and Nairn Access Panel, an information board has now been installed at the Kingsteps end of the recently refurbished all abilities path at the East Beach.   Featuring some of Seamus McArdle’s beautiful bird photographs and descriptions of year round flora and fauna, the board will help those using the path to identify and appreciate the amazing variety of wildlife we have on our doorstep.

Photo:   David Tomkins (RSPB), Joan Noble, Peter Duncan, Val Springett, Seamus McArdle.

Regeneration Hub

Following speculation, rumour and hearsay we felt it important to outline precisely the proposals for the Old Social Work Building, developed in conjunction with Highland Council, Nairn BID and Community Councils. It is not competing with the Community & Arts Centre.

Application extract. “The project involves restoring and repurposing a locally valued disused building and using it flexibly for a range of activities that together will play an important role in regenerating the economy of Nairn and wider Nairnshire. (More on page 2)