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Common Good Fund

May 18th, 2009 | Author: admin

May I advise all Nairn citizens that Sandown Lands are an asset belonging to the Common

Good Fund, is now, and always has been totally theirs. There is no farmer with either grazing

rights or agricultural lease using it. While Highland Council holds the Deeds, they do so onbehalf of Nairn residents. Therefore, they should use the area to walk their dogs, ride their

horses, cycle over it, picnic on it, kick a football around it, fly a kite from it and not just the

wetlands area all of it. Make sure you take photographs of your usage of the area so that

your claim to free usage is perpetuated. This counts for a lot at the next round of any future

planning application.

There is no reason why there might not be 130 or more houses built on Sandown, so that the

Common Good Fund can benefit and supplement the charitable work that it carries out.

However, Nairn citizens must all ensure that they are consulted by the Trustees of the

Common Good Fund BEFORE any disposal of Common Good Lands is made, under the

heading of changes to the Nairnshire Local Plan, in its future guise as the Inner Murray FirthPlan. Be warned that Deveron or someone like them will be back, aided and abetted by

Highland Council. Do not be lulled into a false sense of security that it was our Nairn

Councillors, who were instrumental in rejecting the application.

The application totally failed because Highland Council were disingenuous in how they dealt

with Deveron and the Nairn public. They failed to follow regulations by not acknowledging

the primacy of the Nairnshire Local Plan for 130 houses on Sandown; then, not following

procedures necessary to have it amended, having applied for planning consent for an increase

to 230 houses; and then, not translating the housing limits within that original plan (max.130)

into the DRAFT Development Plan. Furthermore, as the Draft Development Plan was never

brought to committee for approval it also never had legal status, as an authorisedDevelopment Plan.

Nairn citizens should understand that the Common Good Fund is theirs and theirs alone.

They should require that Highland Council make the Nairn Community Councillors Trustees

as well as maybe the 4 Nairn Councillors. Thus, they should also insist that the other

Highland Councillors should NOT be Trustees of the Nairn Common Good Fund. No offence

to them but they should NOT be Trustees because they do NOT live in Nairn, a fundamental

criteria of Common Good Fund administration, which Councillors in other areas of the

Highlands should be demanding adherence to in their own areas where a Common Good

Fund exists. If any one is interested I can bore them with the historical details and some of

the current cases being acted out around Scotland at present but there is lots of info here

John Hart

Mount Pleasant

Sandown Road

Nairn

http://www.nairnmatters.com/sandown-lands/http://www.nairnmatters.com/sandown-lands/http://www.scottishcommons.org/project.htmhttp://www.nairnmatters.com/sandown-lands/http://www.scottishcommons.org/project.htmhttp://www.nairnmatters.com/sandown-lands/