Calling anyone from Nairn who can shed light on an issue APTSec is troubled by; please holler now!
Please look over:
A96 Growth Corridor Development Framework page 18; fig 3 - Nairn Framework Plan
Exhibition Board 4 plan for the development at Delnies currently under consideration
Power Point presentation by S Davidson (slides 11-15)
Practically Delivering Smart Growth for the Highlands - A Success in Collaboration
So how many houses are they planning for West Nairn and exactly where?
(I have the full notes on the S.Davidson ppp but the file is 25mb please contact me if you wish a copy)
This is a very important question. But it opens a large can with a lot of worms in it.
ReplyDeleteFor reasons that are not clear (but deserve probing) Scott Davidson of Halcrow seems to be peddling via the A96 Framework Plan his peculiar concept of Smart Growth - which seems to be largely bulls**t and jargon.
One of the main elements of his concept is a higher density of residential housing (which implies flats - see p 30 of the A96 Framework) than is typical of the region or consistent with the existing character of Nairn. This is indicated in the areas which Halcrows' own A96 Corridor Framework plan presumes are to be developed for housing.
Who stands to gain from such an approach (no prizes for guessing)? This raises the question of whether Halcrow/Davidson are offering properly objective and dispassionate consultancy advice to the Council which pays them, or are advocating a plan which serves the ambitions of developers rather than the wishes of the community.
Davidson's PowerPoint show is very revealing. It puts the Cawdor Estates plans for West Nairn/Delnies alongside the Halcrow plan - apparently in order to rubbish the Cawdor plan as "conventional", while the Halcrow plan is presumably radical and trendy. Cawdor's plan offers low-density housing, landscape and leisure. Davidson urges "a range of densities" and a "new [urban] district centre... which... responds to the wider context of the Corridor" [translation: offers high density dormitory housing within commuting range of Inverness]
These are murky waters. What exactly is Davidson's motive? Which developers are aligned with which planners, and with what objectives in view?
And as for the question of how many houses - how long is a piece of string? The answer is likely to be "as many as the developers can get away with". For example, the Nairn Local Plan specified 140 on the Sandown land; Deveron has sought to build 550 (they were refused, and have appealed).
The A96 Framework, if adopted formally into the new Highland-wide LDP, envisages 4,629 new residential units for Nairn by developing West and South Nairn. This near-doubling of the town's population has already been challenged as unrealistic, unjustified, and unacceptable.
Halcrow's A96 Framework is however right to state that a Nairn bypass is critical to the delivery of the growth the plan suggests. The corollary is that unless and until a bypass is in place, development on the scale proposed cannot, and should not, take place.
So if planning is about setting priorities, then the priorities, at least, are clear.
Thank you for you comment which I did not amend. Since, as the title of the group suggests, 'Transparency'is of the essence here;it seems that you feel that there are still many questions to answer.
ReplyDeleteWhat would you say if it was suggested that the only way a bypass for Nairn would be provided was if the the population were to increase very significantly, not only on a large area of land, but at higher densitites?
Does anyone have any information whether or not the statement above or any version of it has been mentioned at any meetings in Nairn?
APTSec - your questions deserve a response.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of discussion of these issues at meetings in Nairn - not least because of the HwLDP consultation exercise. But there has been some muddying of the waters too.
The A96 is a trunk road, and so the matter of a Nairn bypass is a strategic one for the Scottish Government and Transport Scotland (and has been identified as such in policy documents and by Ministers). As a bypass on a trunk route it is essentially for through traffic, and thus falls to be funded by central government. Some preliminary work is already under way to bring this forward. There is a very similar process, and precedent, in the recently-announced and directly comparable bypass plan for Fochabers.
But there are some, including possibly local developers and planners, who appear to believe - or want to create the impression - that the Nairn bypass can only be provided if the funds to build it are forthcoming via developer-contributions from substantial new development in Nairn and the Corridor. This is somewhat misleading. In principle, the purpose of developer contributions is - or should be - primarily to fund the immediately local requirements for community facilities, access and infrastructure for that development, not for financing the upgrading of regional trunk through-routes.
Some might allege that in fact this is little more than crude blackmail of Nairn residents: "The only way you'll get the bypass the town needs is by acquiescing in massive residential development-expansion to pay for it".
Too simplistic, no doubt. But quite a lot of people seem to believe it. The APTSec comment above reveals, rather worryingly, how far this notion has already become a common assumption.
Thank you for your comment.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that is of great concern to APTSec is whether or not (in our busy, 'information overload' lives) we can access and assimilate the necessary range of good quality information about the planning system and how it affects local issues.
Interesting where the horizons get drawn isn't it?
ReplyDelete