New parking restrictions for Harbour Road

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Do you commend Highland Council?

From the council web pages:

Over the next six months, The Highland Council will be preparing a new City Vision for Inverness, to replace the one prepared in 2003 – and the public are being urged to get involved by suggesting their top priorities for action.

A series of one-day Future City Vision events will run from Wednesday 20 January until Friday 22 January, 2010 for people from local communities, businesses, schools and colleges and the voluntary and public sectors.

Interested parties should contact Conan Farningham, Development Plans Team, Planning and Development Service, The Highland Council. Tel: 01463 702291 | Email: devplans@highland.gov.uk. The public can also have their say online at: http://invernesscityvision2010.blogspot.com/

Trevor Muir, Chief Executive of Architecture and Design Scotland, said: “A+DS are delighted to support Highlands Council in the process of discussing what kind of place Inverness could be. This is a challenging question. The only real answer can emerge from discussion on the ground. We commend Highlands Council, both the leadership and the officers for committing to the agenda of creating and maintaining places where people want to be, particularly in the context of the national agenda of reform of the planning system.”

To read full article click here

Let us hope that they make a better job of it than the last City Vision which was the non-statutory well stream from which '30,000 people residing in a series of communities along the A96 Corridor' (and all APTSec's stress) flowed.

The 51 council houses

From the Highland Council web pages:

'The Highland Council is delighted that it has been successful with its bid for £1.275 million funding to the Scottish Government to support the construction of 51 new Council houses.

The housing units are earmarked to be built on Council-owned or Highland Housing Alliance sites - at Caol (8 units); Dingwall North (10 units); Invergordon (12 units); Corsee, Nairn ( 9 units); and Scotsburn Road, Tain (12 Units).

The new housing will be mainstream two and three bed properties with the exception of those at Nairn, which will be designed for older people or people with other health needs. All the new properties will be comparable to the new energy efficient homes recently developed by the Highland Housing Alliance at Kildary.'

Broadband for rural Scotland

Extract from Scottish Government web pages:

Following talks with the Scottish Government to identify rural areas needing improvements, BT has already started work on upgrading 71 telephone exchanges. The first upgrades will be complete from March 2010.

The exchanges - in Argyll, Ayrshire, the Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Forth Valley, the Highlands and Islands, Lanarkshire, Lothian, Moray, Orkney, Renfrewshire, Shetland, and Tayside - are all operating at or approaching full capacity for broadband provision.

For full article click here

Confused about renewables?: part 1

The Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland has a policy on wind Farms:

"This policy is intended to support the in-house work of APRS when responding to planning consultations concerning individual wind farm developments. In addition it may be useful to underpin any representation that APRS decides to make at a public inquiry or when giving guidance to local community groups who wish to formulate a view about a development in their locality. The policy does not set out to be comprehensive in its coverage of all the planning, landscape and natural heritage issues that might be raised by a particular wind farm development. Rather it focuses on visual and amenity matters as representing the core interest of APRS. First published in 2003, the policy was reviewed in September 2005 in an attempt to take account of the increasing number and scale of wind farm developments being submitted for approval."

The full item is available here

Devon Supermarket Challenge

Planning Daily reports:


A High Court wrangle between supermarket giants Sainsbury's and Tescos over their plans for the town of Dawlish in Devon has opened today.

For the full item click here

Strictly let her down

So, let's just get straight to the point; why didn't Ali B receive any support for her obvious nervousness? In other series, celeb after celeb received extra coaching here and there to help with issues seem as inhibiting their performance. This is a dance competition for trainees, and all additional help and support should be provided and the producers have already set precedent by helping others in the past.

There is no doubt that Mr W proved a formidable partner in the Argentine Tango and Mr H clearly now enjoys performing, but they too have their flaws, which strangely enough did not seem to affect the audience vote on Saturday.

Rant over

Consultation on the Councillor's Code of Conduct

I was chatting briefly to a senior planning contact this morning and the contact happened to mention that the Scottish Government is now consulting on a:

'Proposal for Amendments to be made to the Councillors’ Code of Conduct'

The Code of Conduct was brought in in 2003;

"The revised Code addresses the way in which councillors should now take decisions on Quasi-Judicial or Regulatory Applications since the changes in the Scottish Planning System have come into effect."

Responses need to be in before 18 February 2010 and more details can be found here

APT in the Press

APT was mentioned in a small item on page 3 of the Inverness Courier this week with respect to our concerns over the consideration of the Airport Business Park application.

We were also mentioned in an item in the Press and Journal click here to read the item.

Busy Bees

The last month has been so hectic and draining for many of us in APT. Issues are now popping up all the time and the whole process of keeping up with the all the consultations and consideration of the major planning applications and appeals means that there are very often not enough hours in a day.

Blogging activity has been reduced but hopefully will pick up again in the run up to Christmas.

Quote of the week

"We (the community council) would have been more active in our concerns but we felt reassured on the basis that there was to be a hearing”.

[The Chairman of a local community council on reading in the press that the Inverness Airport Business Park Planning Application was to be considered on Tuesday 8th December without the benefit of the planning hearing that the community council had been informed would take place]

Early Christmas Presents

Cawdor Maintenance Trust has submitted further information with respect to their Mixed Use Development Plans 08/00080/OUTNA at Delnies.

There is a formal consultation on this and representations should be made in writing to the Area Planning and Building Standards Manager by 12 January 2010.

Copies of the relevant documents will be available at Church Street Inverness and The Court House, Nairn.

"An unrivalled range of excellent opportunites"

News from the largest employer in Highland:

"Whatever your educational background, whatever your age, whether you have little work experience or a lot, there are jobs at Highland Council for everyone. And remember, if you cannot work full time, most of our jobs are open to job sharing and there is also a range of part time, standby, casual and sessional jobs."

For the latest list of jobs click here

Easter Ross Ward Forum does Housing

Part of the latest press release from Highland Council:

"The Highland Council is currently developing the Highland’s third Housing Strategy. It will set out the main housing issues and its strategic direction - what it aims to do; what are the priorities and how Highland’s resources will be used including those used to provide new houses.

David Goldie, Highland Council’s Head of Housing, said the aim of the Council is to ensure everyone in Highland has a good quality, warm, affordable, secure home which meets their needs in a pleasant and thriving community.

“We are consulting with people across Highland to help us decide what action to take. This will help us understand what their priorities are, and what changes are needed, so that we can take these on board,” he said."

[Next week (9 & 10 December 2009) households from the Cromarty Firth to the Dornoch Firth are being invited to have a say on how The Council and its partners can meet people’s housing needs and deal with housing issues over the next 5 years.]

Strictly tinged with sadness

A belated rundown of Saturday's 'Strictly' fringe fest:

We really missed Jade this week.

Chris - does he ever lose his cool? - danced cheekily and survived

Ricky - "too cool for school" - looked tired and uncomfortable and very nearly didn't survive

Ali - never mind the sequins, where are the bandages -danced kookily and survived the pain and the vote

Laila - "we're so glad Anton's got this far" - gave Anton the chance to shine and survived

The dream ended for Natalie, sadly, despite doing her best with another confident performance. The crowd, determined to show their appreciation for her attitude throughout the series , gave her a send off (uninterrupted applause and a standing ovation) as enthusiastic as her appearances in the show - and all this while Bruce and Tess tried to draw things to the usual conclusion.

Must confess, I was sad to see Natalie go

(Still think the show is too much stuffing and not enough turkey these days though!)