WestInverness.org.uk

On a wet Sunday much of Inverness was without water for much of the day, as a supply interruption affected most of the city of Inverness. It was all a bit worrying.

Areas affected included almost the whole of Inverness West ward — except Scorguie and some small areas such as Clachnaharry village, the Leachkin and the Dunain area — as well as Dalneigh, the town centre, the Crown area, Longman industrial estate, and Lochardil. Postcodes IV2 and IV3 were affected, with press reports (P&J) putting the number affected at 19,000.

This was the third time in just over three years that Kinmylies had experienced an outage. Previous occasions were in January 2005, with Scorguie also affected, and November 2006 when 500 homes in Kinmylies were cut off.

Alex Graham has asked Scottish Water for a report on what caused Sunday’s interruption and what steps are being taken to prevent a recurrence, and he will also be discussing the matter with Highland Council.

Footnote: Monday 16th June Scottish Water website notes “reports of loss water supply and low pressure from the IV12 postcode area of Nairn.” Could be spreading!

Question Time - Highland Council 8th May

The question submitted by Inverness West Cllr Alex Graham asking when the City of Inverness Committee would be able to exercise its powers of scrutiny was provided with a response which totally failed to answer the question. Question and answer are below.

In a follow up question, The Provost stated that the information for the City Committee would be available by 30th June.

[Note that although the Council papers referred to the Convenor, it was actually the Provost of Inverness who replied.]

Questions to the Convener

The following Questions have been received by the Chief Executive in terms of Standing Order 42:–

(i) Mr Alex Graham

“With reference to the motion passed at Inverness City Committee on Monday, 4 February 2008 which stated that:

“The Administration was establishing the type of information and the method by which it could be reported to Wards which could be aggregated on a City wide basis for reporting to the City Committee in accordance with the Committee’s powers. The detail of the process for reporting the information both to Wards and the City Committee would be the subject of a further report to the next appropriate meeting of the City Committee” and noting that two subsequent meetings of the City Committee have been held without further report on this matter, please advise of the current position and when it is expected to provide the information concerned so that Inverness City Committee can discharge its responsibility to scrutinise service delivery in the City of Inverness in terms of Paragraph 2.2 of the Schedule of Powers delegated from the Highland Council.”

The Convener’s response to Alex Graham is circulated.

Mr Graham will be entitled to ask a supplementary question which will be answered by the Convener.

Item 8 - Questions to Convener
Response - to Mr Alex Graham
In response to your question –

The Corporate Manager (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey) is working with a group of Officers from each Council Service to prepare the information that can be reported at Ward level across all 22 Council Wards. Initially, this information was prepared for Ward 7 (Cromarty Firth) as reported by the Corporate Manager to the Inverness City Committee on 4 February 2008. The proposals for Ward reporting were also circulated to all 80 Elected Members via their own Ward Business Meetings.

As information across all 22 Wards was being collected and collated over the past few weeks, some changes have had to be made to the original material. This has resulted in improvements to the original both in the method of capturing the information and in its presentation. For example, taking the first suite of information on ‘Council Facilities’, this has been improved by adding information on staff numbers, unit costs and regulation and inspections to the original Property database held by the Housing and Property Service. This will stop any duplication in reporting of the information and make the system more efficient.

Meanwhile, the business of scrutinising service delivery continues to happen at Ward level, particularly through Ward Business Meetings. Service representatives are regularly invited along to discuss requirements and priorities for the Ward thus enabling Members to scrutinise what is going on in the Ward and to report back to their communities either through the Ward Forum or at Community Council meetings. The work to capture the information for Ward Reporting will be finalised shortly and will be presented to Members following completion.

Consultation is now under way on where to place the Faith, Hope and Charity statues once they return to Inverness following their purchase by the Inverness Common Good Fund.

A paper detailing options went before the City Committee on 17th March 2008 and a short list of five options has been identified:

• The Castle embankment
• In front of Ness Bank Church
• Cavell Gardens
• UHI Executive Office gardens (old RNI building)
• Old High Church facing Bank Street

Photo impressions of what these could look like are on the web at:

http://www.greeninverness.com/Documents/FHC%20Options.pdf

Forms are available at the Town House reception desk (Castle Street entrance) or you can download a copy of the options form from the web at:

http://www.greeninverness.com/Documents/FHC%20Options%20List.pdf

Forms should be returned to Highland Council, Town House, Inverness, IV1 1JJ after completion. Closing date is the end of April.

Work will start on Monday 18th February on the waterproofing and re-surfacing of the Tomnahurich Swing Bridge and continue until Sunday 30th March.

Theere will be single lane closure on the bridge controlled by temporary traffic lights at peak times and by “vehicle actuated” temporary traffic lights at other times.

The canal bridge will be restricted to two swings per weekday at noon and at 3.30pm and Bught Road will be closed during the works.

During the weekend of Friday 29th February to Monday 3rd March 2008, the bridge will be completely closed to vehicular traffic from midnight on Friday night to 5am on the Monday.

Vehicle traffic on the A82 Fort William road will be diverted by General Booth Road, King Brude Road and Telford Street to the Telford Street Roundabout. Pedestrians and cyclists will be escorted through the site. The bridge will reopen at 5am on the Monday with a single lane closure from then on.

This £250,000 scheme comprise renewal of the waterproofing and road surfacing on the canal swing bridge.

The motion to have effective scrutiny implemented at Inverness City Committee came very close to success at the meeting on 4th February, with the Administration holding on by just one vote at one stage. The debate was marked by good co-operation between Liberal Democrat and Labour councillors, and by impressive contributions from Lib Dems David Henderson and Janet Campbell, the always independent Roddy Balfour, and John Ford of Labour.

There was a palpable feeling in the Council Chamber that the Administration was in a weak position by refusing to operate the limited powers already held by the City Committee. Claims that detailed information is already being delivered at ward level do not bear examination — the only report available being an example prepared for Dingwall & Seaforth Ward!

The Provost’s amendment, which scraped through by just one vote, was to bring forward a report to the next meeting on the process of delivering information to wards and to the city committee. Confirmation of the precise terms of the motion has been requested, but the Administration’s response on this day points to a centralised and controlling approach in what is already one of the most centralised councils in Scotland.

Excellent piece by Helen Paterson in the Inverness Courier on the history of Inverness Common Good Fund, not an easy subject to cover but the article gives a very clear sense of its historic nature. The Common Good Fund, of which the councillors are effectively trustees, dates back hundreds of years, and includes parts of the Longman Industrial Estate, the Ness Islands, the Victorian Market, the Town House (rented to the local authority) and sizeable financial investments.

The article can be found here:

http://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/4931/

Concerns about how it is applied are not confined to recent years, with a major problem in recent decades being the size to which the Fund has grown as compared to the limited nature of clearly accepted uses.

Highland Council administers eight Common Good Funds inherited from predecessor authorities, with Nairn being in the news recently due to the huge increase in its value as a result of 86 acres of land at Sandown on the western edge of the town being developed for housing. The sale proceeds, which have not been divulged, were in excess of £14 million.

A paper showing the current year’s income and expenditure for Inverness Common Good Fund is at this link (as a PDF document) is here.

A move for proper scrutiny of City services has been launched by councillors Alex Graham and Janet Campbell with support from their Liberal Democrat colleagues.

They have submitted a motion for the next meeting of the Inverness City Committee expressing concern that the Committee has not yet been able to scrutinise services in the City properly, and calling for regular reports to be provided.

Janet, who is a Lib Dem councillor for Inverness Central, thinks Inverness councillors should be monitoring things such as housing improvements and renovation works on the large housing stock on a City basis, and so far these have not been reported directly to the City Committee.

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Councillors have voted 15 - 2 to grant outline planning permission for an Asda Superstore at Slackbuie, after a lenghty debate attended by approximately 100 members of the public. The development consists of a superstore, petrol filling station, 5 small retail units and associated works on land at Slackbuie Farm on the east side of Inverness, opposite the new Gaelic School.

The Committee will discuss detailed conditions to attach to the consent at a future meeting - probably in February 2008. These are likely to be concerned with traffic on the Southern Distributor Road, particularly at the nearby Inshes roundabout where traffic lights will be considered. The Inverness Courier has reported (Friday 18 January) that the cost could be of the order of £1.2m.

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