Nairn Matters

A recent Nairnshire Telegraph featured a number of issues relating to the Common Good Fund and comments made by Highland Council Convenor Sandy Park.

John Hart responds as follows:

Dear Sir, — The headline “Convener opposes the idea of community groups as custodians of Common Good” (Nairnshire Telegraph July 7) unfortunately confuses two very distinct issues.

Firstly, it is not community groups, it is community councillors that should be included in the Common Good assets disposal decision making process.

The only way that community councillors can have greater involvement in the strategic management of Common Good Lands is by becoming co-trustees of the CGF with Highland Councillors from Nairn, but without the other 76 councillors from the Highlands.

Secondly, Mr Park’s assertion that community groups could have a greater involvement in the management of Common Good Lands is correct where a community group can take on a Common Good asset and manage it for the benefit of the community and any revenue raised, after running costs, would go to the Common Good Fund (CGF).

It is possible for a legally constituted community group to form as a company entity to negotiate the transfer of deeds of a piece of Common Good Land from Highland Council for community use, for example a Sandown Wetlands Wildlife Park Trust. Another could be the development of Common Good Land for social housing with rentals accruing to the CGF. These are not my ideas; they are initiatives driven or suggested by Community Councillors.

An enlarged Nairn Area Committee (which deals with CGF would provide a necessary separation in the disposal process between Highland councillors and community councillors. This would ensure that financial propriety is maintained through the checks and balances that both groups bring. Thus, a planning application involving Common Good Lands, under such control, would have received deeper scrutiny and would arrive at the Planning Committee more likely with full community support and in the knowledge that the CGF would benefit in full.

Seven Common Good Funds in Scotland took the decision some 15 years ago to register as charities with HM Customs and they now continue as charities with the Office of the Scottish Charity Register (OSCR). This decision was taken by those trustees for the tax benefits that it brings to the CGF. Why did Nairn CGF trustees fail to do the same at the time?

A case of poor management, perhaps; but the point is that Highland Council sees itself as a direct inheritor of Common Good assets down the line from Royal Burgh, Town Council, County Council, District Council and now subsumed within Highland Council.

In this respect it believes it can make the unilateral decision to dispose of common good assets in a similarly “dishonest way” as magistrates did in the 18th century, by handing over common good lands to those who did them favours. This was deemed illegal and laws were passed to outlaw it.

The modern “dishonest way” is for Highland Council to call for tender bids for 305 houses, as per the missives, on Sandown Common Good Lands from a number of developers, then subsequently to allow Deveron Homes to apply for planning permission for 550 in order to extract just over £9000 per unit over the 305 towards the A96 protocol, namely some £2.4million, money which actually would belong to the Common Good Fund. At the same time did Highland Council ask the other developers, who failed in their initial bid, to re-bid on the basis of 550 units? Of course not.

I would ask Mr Park not to patronise community groups, (and by the way community councillors are also elected), because if this is the quality of the legal and financial advice he is getting from Highland Council, and which he claims “community groups would struggle with”, he needs to be very careful not to fall into the same excuses trap as our illustrious MPs with their expenses.

He could almost be pleading along the lines: “It was Highland Council legal department that told me it was legal to accept the highest tender bid, on the basis of a larger number of units than specified in the development brief and the missives, without going through a formal re-tendering process”. A basic legal requirement, which if not followed, breaches contract law.

Yours etc.

John Hart