Community Councils, first up in 2012...

Will be the West CC. They have a meeting in the Community Centre on Wednesday the 4th at 7.30 p.m. The Westies will be talking about the Sandown Lands, Traffic Lights, Bus Routes and the Town Centre.
Obviously the West are not confining their discussions to their own patch and their advert also invites residents of any part of Nairn to attend. This observer would anticipate NICEafarian input on the subject of the Town Centre. It should be an interesting meeting.

Why can't the number 20 stop at the bus station?

Sheilea Mayer asked that question at the River CC meeting last week. The problem for some folk is that they need to get into town on one of the regular buses that use the A96 and then change to the number 20 to get up to the hospital. Instead of having to walk over to the stop on the High Street wouldn't it be easier for the 20 to go to the bus station as well? Here's a map of the 20 & 20a routes.

Problems on the Buses – Suburban CC want to know your experiences

John Mackie told the CC meeting at the Academy last night that they were continuing to compile a dossier of complaints about bus services in Nairn and wanted to hear more from members of the public. There seem to be problems for folk getting across from the bus station to the High Street to get up to the hospital when the buses from Inverness were running late and John stated that the surgery were concerned about this too. Highlighted too, was recent lack of consultation on timetable changes. Worries surfaced that the new revamped 10 service timetable may no longer include the Tradespark detour but it was also stated that the new timetable hadn’t been published yet. There were complaints too about the increasing cost of travel on the town services and it was asked how long the No20 would last once the Sainsbury’s funding ran out.
So the Suburban folk want to hear from you and they will be forwarding detailed complaints to the authorities including, it was suggested, MSPs and the MP.

Timetables - citizens are doing it for themselves

Here's one of the timetables for the Fishertown-hospital-Sainsbury's (via the West End) service. Thanks to the regular gurnite who sent this image in. This could well be one of the timetables that Citizen Tommy has put up. Heard about his initiative via Liz on twitter. It's the Big Society in action that's for sure. Glenurquhart Road where were you when this was happening? Anyway, saw the bus go past again today with no passengers. Has anyone actually used the service yet? The 20 and 20A are also seem pretty short of passengers. Use them or lose them?

On the buses - the missing ingredient

Liz is trying to get the obvious omission sorted! Maybe someone thought it would all work by magic?

Here's the previous article with a copy of the timetable. Come on Laurie get the bling out and pose for a picture at one of the new bus stops in the Fishertown (once someone finds out where they are of course).

UPDATE: 19.24 - Liz gets some essential information. It's hail and ride - no need for bus stops. Still think Laurie should polish the bling however.

Fishertown - West End - Hospital - Sainsbury's bus service

Click on the image to enlarge. Tommy Hogg sends the Gurn this copy of the new timetable. This service is in addition to the 20 & 20a services and is a result of campaigning by the River Community Council. It seems to have started without any fanfare however and Tommy was surprised to see the bus down in the Fishertown. He went up to the Council offices and obtained a copy of the timetable.

UPDATE: Copies on the timetable available at the Courthouse service point.

Route 20 - New Nairn town bus service from Aug 1

Anyone thinking of jumping on the bus to see what the new supermarket will have to offer can find the timetable here and a map of the route here. Please note the bus starts today but the supermarket opens on Wednesday.

Transport Authorities practice to meet anticipated demand from Nairnites for travel to Sainsbury's

Well that's what this observer thought it was until Laurie, in charge of traffic management for Today's Nairnshire Challenge, put me right. Good luck to all participants today. Hopefully we'll have some pictures of the event on the Gurnflickr pages later this evening.

Invercentric bus pauses at Blairmore

Picture will enlarge

Bus Service coming for the Fishertown but next year

Liz told the River CC on Tuesday night that Forres Taxis were in the process of surveying a route for the Fishertown which will start next year. A minibus will run from the Fishertown to the hospital and the elderly will be able to use their bus passes on the service.

This will be excellent news for those who have been campaigning for such a service for several years now.

Hopefully the service will perhaps consider those holidaymakers who check out from the caravan site for 10.00 on Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays. Families making their way to the railway station with all their luggage can be a familiar site during the season and if the price of fuel keeps rising more of them might chose to come to Nairn for their holidays via the train.

No buses to West Life at Cawdor?

A few West Life fans have ended up on the Gurn after searching for information on buses to the concert. Most of them will perhaps be making their way from Inverness but it seems that there is no spare accomodation in the Highland Capital this weekend (P&J report here), such is the interest in the Cawdor concert that fans are being advised to try Nairn with all beds full in Inverness. It could bonanza time for the town's taxi services this Saturday as fans try and get up to Cawdor. Hopefully the roads will not be too crowded but some concerns have been expressed in the P&J:

'However some fans are upset that there is to be no public transport to the castle.
Angela Mackay, 45, of West Mackenzie Park, Inverness, predicted traffic jams on rural roads around the castle and said that buses should have been laid on.
Les Kidger, of promoter CK Events, said: “We are anticipating a fair crowd to come from 9am onwards.
“We have facilities set up for them and will be looking after them.” '

UPDATE: more anger and concern at the lack of buses for the Westlife gig on the Highland News site - Westlife Castle gig buses blow fury

Moss-side bus withdrawal - users claim they got one week’s notice- Highland Council got ten – why didn’t they warn the community?

One of the parents protesting about the withdrawal of the Moss-side school bus Gerri McNab told the Nairnshire in an interview that was published on May 25th:
"Giving a week’s notice was ridiculous. How did they expect people who had used the bus for years to suddenly find other forms of transport. If they had been using the bus it was probably because they didn’t have other means of transport."

It emerged at a meeting held by River Community Council on Tuesday night however that Highland Council knew a full ten weeks in advance that the withdrawal would take place. In situ to talk about problems concerning public transport (mainly issues about getting to the hospital from the Fishertown) was Mr Robert Edwards a Highland Council senior transport officer. He told the meeting that they get 70 days notice of a change from Stagecoach and that they usually informed local members and ward members, he went on to say that Stagecoach should display information about the change 21 days beforehand.

Liz was also present and stated that she received a copy of all the bus time tables about a month ago but this document didn’t specify any changes. Community Councillor Ian Gordon was outraged by the 70 day revelation and said:

We’ve a 40 day period where everyone is sitting on their butts doing nothing when we could have organised a protest or whatever. Why was that not made available to us quicker so we could act upon it?’ Liz then qualified her statement to say that she got the new timetables about the same time as the article appeared in the Nairnshire. Ian continued, ‘An awful lot of people that do not have private transport are dependent on public transport and we cannot just sit and pontificate around this table if we are comfortable with private transport and not looking after the people that need it.’

It then emerged from Mr Edwards that the first 14 days of the 70 have to remain confidential but that still leaves 8 weeks where Nairn folk could have been informed of this change – why weren’t they? Protests had to be organised and the media contacted by parents almost after the event. It might have perhaps been a different story if those parents and their supporters had had a full eight weeks to campaign to keep their bus. Highland Council you should have warned the community – what went wrong and will you make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Save the kids school bus in Nairn Facebook group

Another front opens in this community's fight against the cuts. There's still free dinners for Councillors and wages higher than the First Minister for some officials but as one mother says:

'Why do the councils have to take away EVERYTHING from the kids, if its not the parks, its raise the school dinner costs now to top it all THE SCHOOL BUS i dont know about you but my kids are to wee to be walking to school. along the main road....'

You can help by adding another campaign page to your favourites: Save the Kids school bus in Nairn

Update: it seems this is just a purely commercial decision from Stagecoach and nothing to do with Highland council.

New town bus service launched

The 159 will run from the Cinema of Dreams Maggot terminus to the 'End of the Line' up at the Supermarket of Dreams fantasy planning game site and will stop at Ashers to allow public inquiry lawyers to get their coffee and sandwiches.