The announcement - 31 May 2005 - via a Highland Council press release that:
"A new community, serving a population of 10,000-plus, should be created on the A 96 Inverness – Nairn road at Dalcross South - between Tornagrain and Drumine Farm, near Gollanfield - to meet the long term needs of the growing Inverness city region.
This is the main recommendation of the first phase of the A 96 Corridor Masterplan, which will be considered on Monday 6 June by members of The Highland Council’s City of Inverness and Area Committee and the Nairnshire Area Committee at a joint briefing in the Town House, Inverness, by consultants FG Burnett and Council planning officials. "
Came as a surprise to many people.
This 'new community' is proposed for a rural area on land owned by 'Moray Estates' , it is understood that the development should be 'Mixed Use'.
Mixed-use development generally means allowing more than one type of use in a building or set of buildings; some combination of residential, commercial, industrial, office, institutional, or other land uses. The concept of mixed-use property developments plays an important part in bringing people back into cities, especially the centres, or otherwise neglected or under utilised areas.
"Barriers to Delivering Mixed Use Development; Final Report" is an extremely interested and relevant read. (The report, of course, comes with the disclaimer, "The views expressed in this report are those of the researcher and do not necessarily represent those of the Department or Scottish Ministers.")
Extracts:
"1.1 The Scottish Government Directorate for the Built Environment has taken forward this research as part of its role to oversee the planning system in Scotland and ensure that new development contributes to high quality places. The aim is not to remake the case for more mixed use development. There is already a general acceptance that mixing uses both at the scales of the neighbourhood and individual building can be valuable. They can help to produce more vibrant, adaptable and pleasant environments and to achieve sustainable places that minimise travel and support local demand for goods /services in a walkable catchment. Nevertheless, there is a general perception that the vast majority of local plan allocations and planning applications are for single use. Hence, there is a need to explore whether this perception is correct; identify why and where mixed use development has and has not occurred and to highlight barriers and the enabling factors."
"Policy Foundation 3.2 The Scottish Government has a single overarching Purpose and sees “sustainable economic growth” as critical to building a dynamic and growing economy that will provide prosperity and opportunities, whilst ensuring that future generations can enjoy a better quality of life. One of the Scottish Government’s National Outcomes in support of this Purpose is the intention that ‘we live in well-designed sustainable places where we are able to access the amenities and services we need’. Consequently, Government policies on the built environment increasingly stress the importance of good design."
"Long Term vision
6.5 Dealing with a fragmented ownership can be an issue from the very start of the mixed use development process. Land assembly and ownership is fundamental as a basis for large scale master planning and can be a significant barrier to development of any kind. Control of land through ownership can have a greater influence than planning control. In this context, the vision of a single landowner or structured promoter/development partnership or company can be instrumental in delivering a mixed use development. In the workshops, it was pointed out that it is also likely that less capital investment will be required if the land is already owned and, with a reduced borrowing requirement, there is also likely to be less pressure from banks and investors who may perceive mixed use development as inherently more risky. One example of this that was highlighted at the workshops was the development proposed at Tornagrain near Inverness."
[Moray Estates appears under the 'Acknowledgments: Individuals who contributed to the research' section of the report. The report covers some 109 pages and the web publication date is given on the Scottish Government web site as September 04 2009.]
You will have noted from a recent post that the Major Landowners in the Corridor are Moray and Cawdor Estates.
Other developers with land interests in the area, that South of Nairn for example, have stated publicly that they are, moving away from being housebuilders to being town builders.
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