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!)

Business is as buiness does?

Some items on the Gurn about the loss of shops on Nairn's High street makes me think that we should all be willing to achieve a greater understanding of what happens in the business world and how it affects our future.

Bookshop chain 'Borders' has been placed in administration. Sky News reporting tells us:

"Borders first opened in the UK in 1997 and was originally owned by the US book giant of the same name.

But the UK and Ireland arm was sold to buyout group Risk Capital Partners - headed by Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson - in 2007.

Management, led by chief executive Philip Downer and finance director Mark Little, then bought the group back with financing from Valco Capital earlier this year."

The TimesOnline reports:

"...when it was bought for £20 million by Risk Capital, the private equity firm owned by Luke Johnson. The number of stores was dramatically reduced from 79, with Risk Capital appointing RSM Bentley Jennison, the restructuring specialists, to oversee sell-offs.

When the company was bought by Valco, Philip Downer, Borders’ chief executive, spoke of his optimism in securing its long-term future. However, the book market has been struggling. Waterstone’s, the biggest chain in the UK, which is owned by HMV, saw sales fall by 3.4 per cent in the 18 weeks to August 29.

Valco appointed Clearwater Corporate Finance to find a buyer for the business."

An interesting item with related comments on "The Bookseller.com" ( dated 190709) provides a range of views and opinions on the subject and contains the following quotesfrom Mr Downer:

"In the short term there will be greater cash flow as we open up a new borrowing line. Beyond that it's ensuring the range, systems and processes in store are in place in order to maximise trade this Christmas."

"It will be extremely challenging but it is for any business that is not selling the basic staples like food. But I wouldn't be talking if I didn't see an opportunity to sell more products to more people and make money. But make no mistake, this is a tough environment"

"Downer refused to answer whether he thought the retailer had received sufficient funding from Risk Capital Partners. He said: "We had an excellent relationship and achieved some extraordinary things. We extracted the business from the US and fundamentally restructured it. It was a very successful period.""

There is also an interesting item in the Independent which catalogues what the author descirbes as the 'Tale of woe' at the end of the article.

New risk on the block

Risk management is a central part of any organisation’s strategic management and an integral part of corporate governance and it should be a continuous and developing process which runs throughout an organisation's strategy. As far as a Local Authority is concerned, risk management is the identification, measurement and control of risks which can threaten the existence, assets, staff, reputation or services of the Council or part of it.

Highland Council's 'Audit and Scrutiny Committee' will get a risk management update (as agenda item 2) on 031209. What will they be told?

Amongst other things:

• that the Council will need to manage and resolve 2000 job evaluation appeals in 18 months to minimise the effect on staff morale and productivity - an existing risk, and,

• that the poor economic forecast for the Country and the Public Sector in the short to medium term may generate additional pressures and difficulties in balancing the Council’s budgets. This then leads to a 'new' risk; that the Council must manage current and future pressures and commitments within reducing available resources.

The full report can be found here

Tornagrain yet again!

I (fairly) recently commented on an article that had originally appeared in the Architecture Scotland magazine, 'Prospect'; here is the comment:

"The reference to communities does not seem to give a balanced view of how the proposals arose and the significant opposition to and concerns voiced by the public and communities regarding these proposals for this large scale development currently contrary to the existing adopted Inverness Local Plan."

and the author's reply:

"Thanks Cathy - I think there is certainly an issue about how and why Tornagrain was selected and I agree that this article doesn’t go there and instead deals with the detail of the proposal. There is a wider discussion about reinforcing existing towns and cities rather than building new settlements and this is particularly apposite in the case of Inverness."

To read the article click here

Getting linked up

Thanks to Barrie at Inverness South CC for these comments on how to find out what is going on in other community council areas:

"Inverness South CC monthly meeting Agenda and Minutes are loaded to the web site so all residents can see what is happening and discussed, particularly in relation to planning issues, meetings attended on other matters and naturally details of any guest speakers.

I discovered that the most realistic, simple and FREE facilities were the community website facilities offered by the Spanglefish operation based in Cromarty.

Suggest a way for APT to move forward on this would be to identify CC's and Residents Associations with web sites and publish a list of links on your APT Blog, and to encourage organisations without web sites to avail themselves of the FREE service and get cracking.

The Community Council web link for the Spanglefish programme is http://www.community-council.org.uk/

For other community use - showcase link: http://www.spanglefish.com/casestudies.asp

We also link to this handy web site http://www.aboutmyarea.co.uk/Inverness-Shire/Inverness/IV2

Anyone got a spare £200 million?

News just in from APTTreas who spotted this article from Tuesday:

"The Scottish Government is considering setting up an agency with millions of pounds to buy unsold homes for council housing, reports suggest.

The Sunday Herald has reported the government is looking at setting up a body called the National Housing Trust, which would rent homes to people on low or middle incomes who do not qualify for housing association support.

The trust could buy 2,000 new unsold homes in Scotland using a ‘cautious estimate’ of £200 million borrowed by local government. There would be no direct government funding."

More here

Homelessness; the Inverness perspective

THE HIGHLAND COUNCIL Agenda Item 6
INVERNESS CITY COMMITTEE - 2 NOVEMBER 2009 Report
No ICC 76/09

Homelessness Issues in the City

Report by Area Housing & Property Manager

This report updates members on:

• National developments in Homelessness duties toward the 2012 target set by the
Scottish Government

• Local outcomes particularly around Service developments in the city centre.

"Homelessness and solutions to Homelessness are not solely an issue for Housing & Property Services. Those presenting with established homelessness lifestyles are typically the victims of dysfunctional backgrounds and often very damaged, in the sense that their capacity to address the causes of their homelessness are compromised. Often however agencies with responsibilities, around addressing these underlying causes of an individual’s homelessness, are not directly involved. Opportunities are therefore often lost for instance to positively engage while a homeless applicant is temporarily accommodated."

On a personal note APTSec is heartened that there is a recognition that people need support and a recognition that there should be an integrated approach to providing this.

Buildings across Highland; Ardersier

Ardersier Old School Service point and Library

Challenging year for planning consultants

From Planning Daily:

"Planning consultancy staffing levels and fee income have dropped over the past 18 months as managers try to balance the books in the face of declining workloads and frozen fee rates."

Full item here

A quote for this week

"The twenty-first century presents us with the challenge to provide cheap and desirable homes in pleasant living spaces for growing populations, without wasting land or resources. As the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act enters its sixtieth year the time has come to look back on successes and failures – and to ask whether land use planning requires a face lift, or deserves retirement."

What do you think?

Original source here

There seem to an awful lot of experts mulling over these weighty matter don't there? Also,

PricedOut.org.uk

Universities "worth £59 billion to economy"

Extract:

"The overall figure of a university sector worth £59bn represented an increase of 25% compared to four years before.

The study found the revenue earned by UK universities - for example by consultancy work, intellectual property income or hosting conferences - stood at £23.4bn, comparable to the printing and publishing industry.

It also suggested that by attracting foreign students the sector generated £2.3bn in 2007-08 in off-campus expenditure."

"In terms of spending and supporting local economies, the university sector bought £19.5bn worth of goods and services produced in the UK."

It would be interesting to see just what the breakdown was; which Universities earned the most revenue and for what? Just how much intellectual property do they have?

More here