Plea to Highland councillors to ‘listen to public and ditch development plan’

Nairn’s four Highland councillors will tomorrow come under pressure to reject the Inner Moray Firth Local Development Plan (IMFLDP) instead of accepting amended proposals.

Locals have major concerns about the impact a proposed new housing development could have on infrastructure and a neighbouring industrial estate.

Hours before a public meeting to discuss a future vision for Nairn before a packed house at Nairn Community and Arts Centre, it emerged that developer Springfield was expected to be told at a meeting of the Nairnshire Committee tomorrow that they must wait until the completion of the Nairn bypass before they start developing a site at East Nairn for up to 1000 new homes.

More than 100 people attending the public meeting on Thursday, voted almost unanimously that they wanted the town’s councillors to halt the IMFLDP and start a new process to implement a new Local Place Plan process for Nairn under a reformed planning system due to be published next year.

Whatever the outcome, it will be a blow to housebuilder Springfield which had hoped to build up to 250 homes before the bypass was in place.

Nairn’s community councils argue the IMFLDP should be scrapped because it is out of date and is soon to be replaced under new planning legislation.

It has emerged a revision of the IMFLDP was being recommended and an area east of Sainsbury’s supermarket was the principal direction for the growth of Nairn.

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But changes to the blueprint going before councillors tomorrow state that the development should be “wholly dependent on the completion of the A96 Nairn bypass”.

Major businesses at the Grigorhill industrial estate fear for their future development and expansion if a major housing estate was to become their neighbour.

In the amendments to the IMFLDP plan to be considered tomorrow, there is also an explicit requirement for land to be provided for existing businesses to expand at Grigorhill and “clearer protection on their operations”.

Highland councillor Paul Oldham said: “We’ve been quietly working on this [amended IMFLDP proposal] for a while now and I made it very clear to officers that this was the only acceptable solution for the people of Nairn and Cawdor.

“It’s not perfect. I know some people would have liked us to have gone further. But then I’m also aware of some people who won’t be happy as they wanted an early start to Nairn East.

“Like everything, it’s a compromise but it does mean that we won’t have construction traffic thundering down King Street for years to come and also that the residents of the new houses, when they’re built, are likely to use the bypass to get to Inverness rather than coming through Nairn.”

Cllr Oldham, who is supporting the amended IMFLDP, had acknowledged in a letter to constituents the plans to build at Nairn East caused “howls of protest from everyone from the start”.

“Everyone was saying ‘you can’t start this before we get the bypass’ and similarly the community councils have been, quite rightly, talking about the need to change to a doctrine of ‘infrastructure first’ in planning.”

Nairn West and Suburban Community Council chairman Alastair Noble said: “We welcome this important step forward and thank our four councillors for working with and supporting the Nairn-interested groups. But it was clear on Thursday evening that the public want the councillors to take this further and stop the IMFLDP in its tracks. There is too much at stake.

“It is now vital that we clarify which local development plan will provide the legal framework going forward. We can either run the risk of using this old IMFLDP with all its changes and uncertainties or use the Local Place Plan process throughout 2023 to deliver an updated and robust local development plan for Nairnshire in 2024 following wide local consultation.”

Some residents are expected to protest outside the meeting.