Issue No 61, June 2018 delivered free to every address in Kilmallie

in this issue

KCC from the chair – p2

for better or worse - p2

KCC meetings – p3

action on noise - p4

plans afoot - p4

slower, safer, smilier - p5

community policing - p5

new Belford Q&A - p6

missives from MSP- p7

Councillors’ Corner - p8

Banavie quarry - p9-11

Blar masterplan - p12-13

in memory - p12

Liberty Q&A - p14-17

2040 vision p18-19

High Notes - p20

Banavie School News - p21

Canal News - p22

Community Centre - p23

wind loads - p24

Corpach in Colour - p24

Rugby Club - p25

Shinty Club - p25

Corpach Woods - p26

Xmas lights - p26

summer strolls - p27

art lochaber - p27

carbon papers - p28-29

CREEL - p29

green fingers - p30

letters - p30

thig an t’earrach - p31

wild about Kilmallie - p32

focus on folk - p33

Holiday Clubs - p33

focus on business- p34

Puzzles from Pithean - p35

Sponsors - p36

side snippets

see page 34

BOYD BROTHERS (HAULAGE) LTD

CLYDEBoyd Fort William Ltd

FORT WILLIAM

TYRE SERVICES

become a sponsor and see your logo here too? A huge thank you to all the businesses below for sponsoring the newsletter.

Our newsletter costs this year have been met by their sponsorship donations, from KCC’s limited funds, from a grant from Lochaber Housing Association, from donations from the community and, most of all, in kind from all our many volunteers. We rely on the contributions from our business community for the cost of producing and

distributing this free newsletter to every address in our area. We welcome sponsorship from all businesses located in Kilmallie, or with principal key personnel resident in Kilmallie. If you would like to see your name or

logo in print supporting your community newsletter, please join with our current sponsors. All donations, big or small, are hugely appreciated.

Please contact us at treasurer@kilmallie.org.uk for details.

fasten your seatbelts we’re about to take off

We are starting to see tangible indications of just some of the dramatic changes that could be taking place in Kilmallie soon. In this issue we bring you news of a substantial housing

development on the Blar, an update about plans for the new Belford, sight of Highland Council’s 2040 vision which includes gas storage and an expanded deep water port at

Corpach, a summary of Liberty’s responses to community’s questions, some strategic and Breedon’s proposals for quarry expansion. A lot to look at and think about!

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Thanks as always to Tony Whitelocke for giving us this crossword.

kilmallie community council

When we meet at the shops or in the street the weather usually comes up early in the conversation - but haven’t we been spoilt recently. The gardeners probably won’t agree but, even as I write, we seem to be in for another mainly dry week. I can’t remember such a hot, dry spell in recent years but encourage those who keep a diary to correct me!

We are still trying to find a solution to our Slower Safer Smilier campaign, particularly to establish a pedestrian crossing near the shop in Corpach and aim to arrange a consultation soon at which Transport Scotland will be represented.

Noise from Corpach Harbour/Industrial Estate is being monitored by noise meters sited in the homes of three local residents. By the time you read this the information may be collected and assessed, hopefully for our next Community Council meeting.

Some members of our community are trying to find a better route to access Banavie War Memorial – scrub cutting has been an exhausting task in this weather! We are hopeful that the memorial will also be cleaned and names repainted before Remembrance Sunday.

From our Community Council meeting in April you will be aware of the possibility of gas being landed and stored at Corpach for use in the new alloy wheels plant. Close to our print deadline I discovered that research is being conducted for SGN (Scotia Gas Network, the gas network in Scotland) which has been requested by the Scottish Government to ascertain demand for a gas supply in the greater Fort William area. Here is the lengthy link:

https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90080444/SGN-Local-residents-online-survey

At the time of writing, I am afraid that I do not know when the survey closes.

We are also hearing that the Highland Council will likely be running public workshops on the Fort William 2040 Masterplan on Monday 20th August. I don’t know the venue yet but can confirm that part of Kilmallie is included in the area. You need to watch for publicity.

Our next Community Council meeting on 25th June at 7:15pm will be the AGM, followed by our usual business meeting. I am pleased to intimate that Maimie Thompson, Head of PR and Engagement at NHS Highland will update us on the Lochaber Health and Social Care Redesign, including the New Belford Hospital. Please come to listen and ask questions; it should be interesting. You will see the most recent Q&As on the project on page 6 of this paper. I hope you have a pleasant summer!

Christine Hutchison, Chair chairman@kilmallie.org.uk

“some straight, some cryptic, some easy, some not so easy”

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Across

1 Confused (7)

4 Material found in the den. Impossible! (5)

7 This Ben is nearby (5)

9 Taxing (7)

10 Rob duck and then stir it up and go with dandelion (7)

11 Condescend (5)

12 Celsius or Fahrenheit (6)

14 Red Fay, tatty, worn (6)

18 Peach or toast. Take your pick! (5)

20 Our mist rearranged for holidays (7)

22 Cup all over confused chat - Hurry up! (5,2)

23 Male duck was an old comedian (5)

24 Had (5)

25 SS react about Marilyn Monroe - she was one(7)

Down

1 Top or bottom. You can sleep in either (4,3)

2 Excitement may give you high temperature (5)

3 Dr Who’s enduring enemies (6)

4 He fought the big man - and won (5)

5 Makes a din when done this way (7)

6 This girl will nag me when at sea (5)

8 Votes for kitchen equipment (5)

13 Elating about setting agent (7)

15 Do run about and end up circular (5)

16 They might be in distress (7)

17 Is it a paradise? (6)

18 Manly (5)

19 It will eat your plants (5)

21 Game I mismanaged. What a picture (5)

Answers to these puzzles are on the website www.kilmallie.org.uk (follow the link on right hand side of the homepage) and will also be published in the next issue of the newsletter for people without internet access.

Answers to last issue’s crossword: Across: 1 POTHOLE, 4 BOOST , 7 MEGAN, 9 SAUSAGE, 10 KARAOKE, 11 TAGUS, 12 NAPLES, 14 BEDSIT, 18 SUSAN, 20 MUG SHOT, 22 ELM TREE, 23 RABBI, 24 LUNCH, 25 EQUATES Down: 1 PUMPKIN, 2 TIGER, 3 EASTER, 4 BLUNT, 5 ORANGES, 6 TRESS, 8 NOOSE, 13 POSTMAN, 15 EAGER, 16 TATTIES, 17 IMPEDE, 18 STEAL, 19 NORTH., 21 HABIT

for better or worse? Whatever you feel about further industrialisation and urbanisation of our area, it is likely that the proposed alloy wheel factory adjacent to the aluminium plant will bring substantial changes to Kilmallie.

Most new factories are sited close to their potential work force. However, in this case the workers would all be new to the area and they and their families would need housing and associated infrastructure including schools, transport and medical facilities.

This raises big challenges for future planning and particularly for cash-strapped Highland Council.

The developer has been given planning permission, so it is now their decision whether to go ahead with the factory or not. But the prior investment in infrastructure to support the coming work force will have to come from public funds. It is hard to justify spending public money until new people actually come to the area, particularly in such difficult and uncertain times for the economy, but on the other hand there will be serious problems if extra facilities are not in place if or when they arrive.

Highland Council has recently been consulting about its proposals for large housing developments on land to the east and north of the Police Station on the Blar Mor. The new Highland Wide Local Development Plan contains aspirations for such developments to avoid the planning mistakes of the past. In particular, it lists six qualities of

successful places for new developments; they should be distinctive, safe and pleasant, easy to get around, welcoming, adaptable, and resource-efficient.

According to the Plan, new developments should be designed to make a positive contribution to the architectural and visual quality of the place in which they are located, should focus on the quality of places and living environments for pedestrians rather than movement of vehicles, and have regard to the historic pattern of development and landscape in the locality.

Whilst aspects of a development such as visual impact can be subjective, the environmental aspects are more straightforward to assess. No development on the Blar could ever be considered resource-efficient, since it has been estimated that the destruction of peat on the 40 hectare site could release as much carbon dioxide as heating all the homes in Kilmallie for ten years. This will not be an issue if the development is limited to areas where the peat has already been disturbed, but any further disturbance of peat would mean housing had a large environmental footprint.

Similarly, the lack of infrastructure and facilities around the Blar would mean it will be difficult to encourage people to walk rather than use their cars.

We all have different opinions, but it is clear that the Highland Council proposals represent a major change to the size and character of our area. We all need to input into the process to make sure that the changes which come to our community are positive.

Russell Leaper, Secretary

Answers to last issue’s Placenames Quiz Part 2

FORFAR, GALASHIELS, HADDINGTON, INVERARAY, KEITH, KIRKWALL, LAIRG, LAUDER, LAURENCEKIRK,

MACDUFF, MELROSE, OLDMELDRUM, PAISLEY, PORTSOY, SALEN, STIRLING, STORNOWAY, TONGUE, TORRIDON, ULLAPOOL, WALLS,

WHITHORN

picture quiz no 18

Where in Kilmallie?

Answer to last issue’s Picture Quiz No 17 The hydro electric scheme at Fassfern

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page 34 page 3 kilmallie community

news There’s apparently a sound scientific reason for why time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. The time available for all the planning, writing, gathering, editing and desk top publishing certainly seems to get shorter and shorter every issue. If there are any younger folk amongst the community who’d like to help, it might help stretch out our perception of time a bit! Mind you this issue is huge - 36 pages - because there’s just so much going on to tell you about.

Thanks as always to everyone who’s helped with this issue, the contributors, the delivery teams and of course our sponsors., without whom there would be no newsletter at all now that our funding from Highland Council has been cut. We are very grateful to you all.

Your newsletter team: Christine Hutchison 772252 Jan MacLugash 772383 Sue Chadney Mandy Ketchin Email us at newsletter@kilmallie.org.uk

Views expressed in this newsletter are

not necessarily the views of the newsletter team or of

Kilmallie Community Council.

Deadline for copy for next issue

25th August, for publication 18th September.

KILMALLIE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Members of the public are most welcome at all our meetings. Meetings are currently held at 7:15pm in Kilmallie Community Centre on the 4th Monday of every month excluding July and December. Please check with the Secretary in case of changes.

Chair Christine Hutchison chairman@kilmallie.org.uk Secretary Russell Leaper Canal House, Banavie, PH33 7LY secretary@kilmallie.org.uk Treasurer Jan MacLugash Salen, Banavie PH33 7LY treasurer@kilmallie.org.uk Members Mandy Ketchin Carol Anne Campbell Jim Ramsay

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KCC meetings

the place to share your ideas and concerns

about local issues - everyone welcome

Ordinary meetings all at 7:15pm at Kilmallie Community Centre

unless otherwise noted

Monday 25 June

AGM 7:15pm Ordinary meeting 7:30pm

Highland Council will be presenting their masterplan for the Blar including proposals for a major new housing

development. Maimie Thompson of NHS will also be updating us

about progress with the new Belford Hospital on the Blar. Come along to ask your questions

Monday 27 August

Come and share your views about options for a new pedestrian crossing at Corpach.

Monday 24 September

Monday 22 October

(Please check with Secretary in case of any last minute

changes or cancellations),

Remember you don’t have to wait for a regular meeting if there is something urgent that you think needs to be

discussed. If at least 20 people (resident and eligible to vote)

request a special meeting, we are obliged to convene one within 14 days.

Even if less than 20 people request a special meeting, we would always try to accommodate one if urgent and

practicable.

Minutes are posted on the noticeboards

at Banavie and Corpach. If you would like to be added to our distribution list to receive copies of minutes via email, please contact the

secretary secretary@kilmallie.org.uk

What is your company name? Locheilnet CIC Where are you located? Our “Head quarters” are in Fassfern, Kinlocheil.

What does your company do? Locheilnet brings affordable superfast internet to the communities around Loch Eil, Glenfinnan and the west side of Loch Linnhe on one side, and the communities between Banavie and the wider Achnacarry/Clunes/Bunarkaig area on the other. We recently added Kilmalieu, Tulloch and Fersit to that list.

How long has your company been operating? The pilot was set up at the beginning of 2013 followed by the full-size roll-out in September later that year. We have not looked back since and are now happily supplying over 400 customers with our service. How many people do you employ locally? 1 full time project manager, 4 contractors (network management, installs, repairs, book keeping services). We also have several dedicated volunteers who help with the hands-on bits of the infrastructure installations and during emergencies, you know... when weather or power outages throw a spanner in the works! What do you like best about being/living in Kilmallie? The beauty of the area combined with the friendliness of the community members and the bonus of still being within a short distance of all amenities and more beautiful scenery. The abundance of trees and hillocks means that we have to apply a lot of creative thinking in order to connect those hard to reach areas, but that makes it even more rewarding.

Chris Pellow

focus on business

We’re very grateful to Chris Pellow and Locheilnet

for becoming the newsletter’s latest generous

sponsor. We’re immensely proud to have such a

flourishing community company in Kilmallie, and

we’re in awe of what Chris and her team have achieved, demonstrating the amazing potential of

community enterprise.

Some of us might be planning to travel to exotic places this summer, but sometimes it’s just as delightful to focus in very close on our own local area.

One fine evening in the first week of June, a small expotition set out to see how many species of wildflower were in bloom along a short length of canal towpath between Banavie Basin and Mount Alexander. It wasn’t scientific. No idea what type of thrissle it was, maybe there were more than two types of buttercup, and one at least was a garden escapee.

But an amazing 31 different flowers were blossoming in that very narrow strip, only 500 yards long. We’ve made a roll call of them in the snippets down the side of the pages of this newsletter.

It’s fascinating to notice the flowers change with the habitat even over just a few feet as you turn off onto the path to go down under the Mount Alexander aqueduct.

And it was but a brief snapshot in time - the wood sorrel and primroses of spring were just wistful memories. All but one dandelion had moved on, and even the delicately beautiful cuckooflower seemed to have disappeared without trace after providing a spectacular show only a week before. In another week, the buds, and petals and seeds will all have changed again. If you walked along the canal every single day, there would always be something new to notice and enjoy. And as wildflower meadows decrease in number (see page 32) verges like this become ever more important as wildlife corridors.

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05/06/18 18/02255/FUL Erection of extension to chalet, Chalet No 1, Everwood, Glenloy

01/06/18 18/02341/FUL Proposed alterations & extension, Long Acres Banavie

01/06/18 18/02366/FUL Erection of house, Taormina Banavie

29/05/18 18/02443/FUL Alterations and extension, 2 Arkavie Cottage Banavie

23/05/18 18/02172/FUL

Revised positioning of pontoon access gangway for the purposes of improving alignment of the access and also allowing effluent pump off direct from boats to a shore based holding tank; all connected with previous Planning Permission 16/04706/FUL for construction of a car park, slipway and change of use of canal buildings. North Of Pier Corpach

23/05/18 18/02352/SCRE Mixed use masterplan comprising 200-250 residential units, commercial, hospital & community use Blar Mhor

17/05/18 18/02168/PNO Prior Notification for Farm-related Building Works (Non-residential) Land 250M SE Of Cruive Cottage Camaghael

16/05/18 18/02242/FUL Erection of boiler house building (retrospective), Sundolitt Ltd Unit 9 Annat Point Industrial Estate Corpach

04/05/18 18/01971/FUL Erection of house, Plots 5 Campbell Road Banavie

23/04/18 18/01823/PAN Proposed development includes residential (approx 200 units), commercial, hospital & community use, the site also includes peat bog & habitat area & landscaped areas, Land 400M NE Of Blar Mhor Industrial Estate

29/03/18 18/01600/PAN Extension to quarry to incorporate revised working and progressive restoration, Banavie Quarry

19/03/18 18/01265/FUL Erect extension, 47 Drumfada Terrace, Corpach

plans afoot Here are the local applications that we’ve noticed on the Weekly Lists in the last three months, up to 10/06/18. Some may already have been determined.

For further information about Weekly Planning Lists, see the Sept 2014 edition of Kilmallie Community News. If you would like to receive weekly lists by email, please contact KCC Secretary.

PIP = Permission in Principle FUL = Full Application LBC = Listed Building Consent PNO = Prior Notification OHL = Overhead Electricity Line ADV = Advertisement MSC = Matters Specified in Conditions (ie typically follow-up details to a permission already granted)

welcome action on noise

KCC has received news from Simon Hindson in Highland Council’s Planning Department regarding progress in relation to action about reducing the noise nuisance from Annat. Following KCC’s meeting in April with Planning and Environmental Health, on 7th May Highland Council served a Breach of Condition Notice on Boyd

Brothers (Haulage) Ltd in relation to working outwith their permitted operational hours. They were given until Monday 11 June 2018 to comply with the terms of the notice. The terms of the notice require them to comply with the terms of their planning permission and specifically stop: • all works and uses of the jetty

between 2200 and 0600 Monday to Saturday inclusive of loading and unloading of vessels and docking of vessels; and

• all works and uses of the jetty between 2200 on a Saturday and 0600 on a Monday inclusive of loading and unloading of vessels and docking of vessels.

If works and uses of the jetty continue outwith the permitted hours please make a record of these and provide them to Simon Hindson (contact details below) for additional evidence which may be used in any further enforcement action which may be taken forward by the Council. Please also do let KCC know if things have improved or not as a result of this action. Simon Hindson, Principal Planner Highland Council Town House High Street Inverness, IV1 1JJ Telephone: 01463 785047 E-mail: simon.hindson@highland.gov.uk

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page 33 focus on folk

Since March this year I have been the new Postmistress – or Post Office Team Leader - in Corpach Post Office. I was pleased to be asked by KCC to introduce myself to the local community as, although I live in Hillview Drive, there will be people who are meeting me for the first time across the PO counter.

I've been in Lochaber since I was 8 years old. We were living in Aultbea when my mum got a job in the (then) Pulp Mill's accounting department so we moved down to Caol. I went to Caol Primary School where I remember Mrs MacIntyre being a kind and excellent teacher. Then to Lochaber High School and when I left, I decided to go into caring. I took a YTS course and worked in local homes for the elderly, a nursery and as a home help. I'm definitely a “people person” so always liked working to provide some form of service to people. In between my jobs I got married to Neil, who is a generator engineer, and we had our three boys, Daniel (now 24) Cameron (22) and the only one left at school is Ewan who is 16.

In 2008 I started work in a local bookmaker’s shop. To work for a bookie they need to be assured that you're not a gambler yourself! I could safely tell them that I only played bingo occasionally and bought a lottery ticket. There was a lot to learn about finances and betting compliance; I was working with a small, friendly and stable team and stayed there for 10 years. However, I had to work evenings and weekends so, when the job in Corpach Post Office became vacant when Katie retired, I decided to apply… and here I am. It has been a steep learning curve, learning the financial compliance and regulations and processes specific to the Post Office – but I was used to that responsibility and I'm now enjoying working with people as PO customers.

Now that I'm not working unsocial hours I find I have more opportunity to relax at home. I enjoy listening to music; the 80's is my favourite musical era and Neil and I go to tribute bands and music festivals. This year we're off with a group of friends to Belladrum and Rewind, which will be great. I also plan to take up zumba and yoga now that I have the time, and to walk the dog more. We like to holiday in Spain – not to sit on a beach but to wander around the old town and to sit on pavement cafes socialising and people-watching, my favourite pastime.

For the future I can see Post Offices being used more as so much banking activity can be done there. Corpach Post Office is generally busy; we get a lot of parcel returns from internet shopping and this seems set to increase as more people shop online. I'm also very glad that I will have 9 months to get fully up to speed before the Christmas rush!

Hazel Young

Some occupations play a pivotal role in a community - postmaster or postmistress is certainly one of them. When so many communities have lost their post offices over the years, we are very lucky to

still have one in Corpach. In this issue, Hazel Young introduces herself as our new postmistress.

We are organising Children's Holiday Clubs for children aged 4-8 at Lochaber Rural Education Trust on the following dates:- Tues. 17th, Wed. 18th & Thurs. 19th July, 10am - 2pm Tues. 7th, Wed. 8th & Thurs. 9th August, 10am - 2pm Tues. 23rd, Wed. 24th & Thurs. 25th October, 10am-2pm The Club costs £12 per child per day and children must be booked in. Children to bring a spare set of clothes and a packed lunch. For more details and to book a place contact Linda on 01397 700800 Lochaber Rural Education Trust (SC032111)

Children’s Holiday Clubs

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Since the last newsletter in March we have seen the summer weather starting to appear along with an increase in tourists and seasonal workers visiting this beautiful part of the Scottish Highlands.

With this increase we have seen a rise in road-related incidents and I would ask everyone to stay alert and focused when out and about or driving on the roads.

There has also been a noticeable increase in incidents involving drink/drug driving in the Lochaber area and I would ask for your support in our mission to crack down on this behaviour by contacting us if you notice anything suspicious on our roads at any time of the day or night.

I would urge anyone who even considers driving a vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs, prescribed or otherwise, to stop and really think of the consequences it will have for the safety of themselves and everyone else! #NOLIMITISSAFE

If any of you have any concerns that you wish to discuss with me, please do not hesitate to contact me via my police email address –

Ross.McCartney@scotland.pnn.police.uk.

As always if you wish to speak to police urgently then use 999, or 101 for a non-emergency.

Best wishes to all in the community and I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe summer.

Ross McCartney Police Sergeant Liaison Officer for Kilmallie Community Council Ross.McCartney@scotland.pnn.police.uk.

Twitter – ‘Lochaber&SkyePolice

Fort William Police Station BLAR MOR, Fort William PH33 7GA Tel. 101 for non-emergency

community policing

slower safer smilier We reported last issue that:

• a crossing at an appropriate place at the canal is not going to be possible

• a crossing at an appropriate place at the Co-op is only going to be possible with significant reduction in parking and relocation of the bus stop.

The option for Corpach KCC want to hear what the community thinks before confirming to Transport Scotland whether the layout is acceptable.

If you have difficulty crossing the road, if you manage or work in the shop or the pub, or if you live nearby, you might have views on what is desirable or acceptable.

Come along to our consultation 26th August 7:15pm Kilmallie Community Centre We hope that any reservations about the layout can be addressed in the interests of those who have difficulty crossing the road. If the layout is not acceptable, we may never see a crossing installed at Corpach.

Dear KCC

I read with anger and dismay that Transport Scotland can't see the nose on their own faces with regard to a much needed pedestrian crossing at the Banavie Swing Bridge. It angers me that they can be so short sighted, that it will take a fatality before something is done. It annoys me that motorists’ safety is being put before pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, canoeists and children's safety.

I moved here a year ago and it was one of the first things I noticed when I walked along the canal. Why no zebra crossings where the paths so obviously cross the road? A few years ago in my home town a new pedestrian crossing was installed at a "safe" point for drivers but not where pedestrians crossed the road. Within weeks a young girl had been struck by a car and killed. The crossing was subsequently moved and there have been no incidents since.

There is only one place a crossing can be put at the bridge and that is where the canal paths cross the road. Anything else will be a waste of time and money as they will not be used and at some point someone, probably a child of a tourist, will be killed.

There is no need for the stretch of road from the Blar Industrial Estate to Tomonie to be 40 miles an hour and there is no justification not to put in a proper crossing at the bridge. There are already signs informing drivers of a swing bridge ahead and cyclists crossing so how difficult is it for Transport Scotland to put signs up warning of Pedestrians Crossing and paint some white lines across the road. We don't need a Pelican Crossing, a Zebra with beacons will suffice as pedestrians still have right of way on any pedestrian crossing.

If Transport Scotland won't do it then maybe a few volunteers armed with paint brushes and whitewash could "guerrilla" install the crossings in the dead of night?

I urge the KCC not to give up the fight to get a crossing at both ends of the bridge installed with suitable and sufficient signage warning drivers there may be pedestrians crossing and to SLOW DOWN. We must not let someone die before action is taken.

Your sincerely Keiron Shatwell, Tomonie

Nice thought Kieron but please don’t try it - a guerrilla crossing could cause more

accidents than it saved and you might risk imprisonment. A zebra crossing could be dangerous without adequate sightlines and we think it

wouldn’t be allowed by Transport Scotland in any case. Kieron wrote again to query the sightlines at the canal bridge, and we also had an

interesting suggestion from Paul Biggin that it might be possible to modify the railings on the bridge to improve sightlines. However the rules state that the

sightlines must be measured from a fair way’s back from the kerb line which might scupper the idea.

We share your exasperation, frustration and ongoing real concern. Do let Transport Scotland know how you feel!

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Wildflower meadows under threat It might come as something as a surprise to learn that perhaps the most threatened habitat in the whole of Britain is the wildflower meadow. There has been a greater than 97% loss of wildflower meadows nationally, with an attendant reduction of floral diversity and the invertebrate species that depend on this, particularly pollinators such as bees.

The loss of flowers in the wider countryside has come about through many reasons, but primarily through agricultural improvement and changes in practice. Development has also played its part, particularly around settlements. We can rarely now enjoy fields ablaze with a rich mixture of colours, and flowers have become marginalised to neglected land, nature reserves and road verges.

As well as having important aesthetic value in their own right, wild flowers play an important part in ecosystems, providing food and shelter for many birds, animals and insects. Bees depend on the nectar they produce, and a lack of flowers has important economic implications in terms of the pollination of agricultural crops, as well as the production of honey by beekeepers. Lowland meadows, including those representing flower-rich neutral grassland types such as that found in pockets around Kilmallie, are a national UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Priority Habitat and also feature on the Scottish Biodiversity List.

Although we often consider that our area of Scotland is relatively wild and untouched, we have not been immune to the loss of flowers. Neglect and change of use of croft land has contributed to this, as has a widespread shift to using fields for sheep pasture and away from mixed farming, including cereal production. The most recent 2011 survey of flower-rich grassland sites within Lochaber showed that in the past 20 years there has been a 24% loss of previously surveyed sites and that 40% of other sites have since deteriorated to be in an unfavourable condition.

In Lochaber, sadly, there are no current protected areas such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest that have been specifically designated because of their lowland grasslands. Restoration of wildflower meadows is both a Highland and Lochaber Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) priority. This was reinforced in the recent (2017) revision of the Living Lochaber LBAP document. Only one ‘new’ wildflower meadow has been created publicly under the Coronation Meadow scheme by Forestry Commission Scotland at Drimnin.

The species to be found in a typical meadow depend on the soil conditions, the degree of moisture and underlying geology. The more basic the soil, generally the more diverse the flora. So-called upland hay meadows, relics of which can be found in this area, often contain spectacular species such as wood anemone, melancholy thistle and globeflower. Orchids are a good indicator of

unimproved grassland, with some good, showy species such as greater butterfly orchid, northern marsh orchid and even common spotted orchid found locally. Yellow rattle is another good indicator of unimproved pastures. This requires relatively poor soils, and depends on a supply of nutrients from grasses, which it parasitises, leading to the suppression of some more vigorous species. Neutral fields may also contain knapweed, oxeye daisy and sorrel, while more acidic pastures often have a variety of eyebright species, devil’s-bit scabious and tormentil. Many arable ‘weeds’ such as poppies and the increasingly rare cornflower only thrive in disturbed land that is not subjected to application of excess fertiliser or weedkiller.

Fortunately, around Kilmallie we still have some nice areas of wildflowers. Mary Elliott and others have worked hard to preserve the road verges along the A697, which have a spectacular display of orchids in early June. The banks of the canal are also a fantastic refuge for wild flowers, with the variety of species increased by lime-rich areas arising from stone used in the canal construction. We also have several small patches of unimproved grassland, largely as a consequence of crofts falling into disuse. Some contain melancholy thistle and, in damper areas, produce spectacular displays of meadowsweet and marsh marigold.

A few years ago, a very rare orchid, the Irish lady’s-tresses, was discovered near Annat, although this site has since disappeared through the ill-placement of cattle feeders and the construction of a hydro track.

Within the middle of Banavie, the field adjacent to the rugby club is a fine example of lowland unimproved neutral grassland, containing a wealth of orchids, knapweed and other plants such as yellow rattle. Sadly, this is scrubbing over, and needs some TLC in order to conserve it. Given that meadows are such a rare resource it would be nice to think that we could cherish and preserve any remaining patches within our community. There is no better time than early summer to enjoy our local wild flowers, and the same pleasure should be available to future generations.

Jon Mercer Glenloy Wildlife

wild about kilmallie

Clockwise from top: melancholy thistle, globeflower clump, and butterfly orchid

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Thig an t-earrach Eu-coltach Dòmhnall Iain, ar caraid neònach Ameireacanach, tha mi a creidsinn gu bheil an t-saoghail a’ fas nas blàithe agus nas blàithe agus gur e sinne a tha coireach, gu ire mhòr. Tha mi air faicinn na èigh-shruthan air feadh an t-saoghail a’dol air ais agus a’ fas nas lugha thar iomadaich bhliadhna agus an aimsir againne a’ fas nas ropaiche. Thathar ag radh gu bheil na geamhraidhean nas giorra na bha iad agus gu bheil an t-earrach a’ tighinn nas tràithe, rud a tha duilich do luchd-sgì agus streapadairean.

Tha mi air a bhith a’ cumail clàr air na h-àmanan aig am bheil na tachartasan sònraichte a’ tachairt gach bliadhna airson greis, fheuch am faic mi pàtran sam bith Eu-coltach Dòmhnall Iain arithist tha mi a’ tuig-sinn nach eil amsir agus reathream an aon rud. Feumaidh sinn clàran a chumail airson ùine mhòr a bhith cinnteach gu bheil an reathream air atharrachadh fad ‘sa tha an aimsir ag atharrachadh bho là gu là, no mionaid gu mionaid. Ma cumas mi a’ dol a’ clàradh dh’fhaodadh e a’ sealltainn atharra-chaidhean ‘sa reathream ach tha iomadh laigsean’san iomairt a tha seo. Anns a’ chiad dol a mach, tha mi dualtach a dhol air falbh airson cola deug air thuras streapadaireachd

-sgi aig an àm seo den bliadhna, a’ fagail bearnan ‘san chlàr. A barrachd air sin, chan eil barantas ann gum faic mi a h-uile rud, ‘sa bhad , am mionaid a thachair e! Thathar ag radh gu bheil duileagan a’ tighinn air craob-han daraich nuair a tha an aimsir blàth gu leor agus gu bith duileagan air craobh uinnsinn nuair a tha na laithean fada gu leor agus gun bi na daraich a’ tighinn gu duileag nas triathe agus nas traithe fad ‘sa tha an reathream againne a’ fas nas blàithe. Gu mi-fhortanach, chan eil clàr agam iomlam a thaobh nan craobh a tha seo. S’docha gu bheil e direach a’ sealltainn na bliadhnicean anns an robh an geamradh beagan nas cruaidhe na càch. Tha mi air fàillig faire a chumail air na craobhan mu dheireadh air am bheil duileagan, na critheann agus fèar-na. Am bheil fear no tè eile aig am bheil clàr mar seo? Dh’fhaodadh e a bhith inntinneach gan chuir ri cheile no coimeas a dhèanamh eatarra. Tha mi’n dochas gun toir sibh uile mathanas air an droch Ghàidhlig agam!

Summary in English For a number of years I have been noting in my diary when things happen in spring. This has been partly to see if climate change has any influence. My records are very incom-plete and based purely on what I see near my house. Additionally, I invariably go away on a ski-mountaineering trip in early spring, which leaves gaps here and there. The table shows flowers coming to blossom, trees coming into leaf, the cuckoo calling and the appearances of old friends such as midges

and bracken. Perhaps somebody else has a similar record and the two could be com-bined.

Gaelic names

reathream climate aimsir weather. dìthean flowers duilleagan leaves blàth blossom blàth-sneachda snow drop lus a’ chrom cinn daffodils seòbhrag primrose pleantrainn plane tree or sycamore uighean losgainn frog Spawn fiadh-ubhal crab apple cuthag a gairm cuckoo calling sgithich hawthorns seillich willows craobh-mhalpais maple trees learag the larch beithean birches calltean hazel callaid fhaidhbhile beech hedge teile lime tree craobh shiris cherry tree darach / daraich oak/ oaks craobh-uinnsinn ash tree raineach bracken meanbh-chuileagan a biteadh midges biting faidhbhile dhubh copper beech

Ronald Cameron

Caismeachd an earraich

2010 2011 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Blàth-sneachda 23/1 30/1

Lus a’ chrom cinn air toiseachadh a thighinn 18/2 6/2 8/2 28/1 29/1

Dìthean air seòbhrag 20/2 19/3 29/3 20/3 2/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air phleantrainn 9/4 25/4

Uighean losgainn 12/3 13/4

Dìthean air lus a’ chrom-cinn 9/4 14/3 21/3 26/3 10/3 30/3

Duilleagan air fiadh-ubhal 9/4 11/4 15/4 7/4 27/3 16/4

Cuthag a gairm 14/4 16/4 1/5 23/4 22/4 10/5 1/5 27/4

Duilleagan air na sgithich 19/4 11/4 19/4 31/3 16/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air seillich 19/4 7/4 22/4 31/3 19/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air chraobh-mhalpais 19/4 10/4 24/4 6/4 10/4 16/4

Learag le dealgan 21/4 6/4 4/3 23/4 17/4

Beithean air toiseachadh a’ thionndadh uaine 26/4 15/4 28/4 6/4 23/4 3/4 18/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air calltean 26/4 8/5 4/5

Duilleagan a’tighinn air callaid fhaidhbhile 29/4 21/4 5/5 21/4 26/4 6/5 30/4 22/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air teile 29/4 21/4 9/5 23/4 3/5 7/5 1/5 25/4

Blàth air craobh shiris 3/5 22/4 8/5 23/4 10/5 30/4 30/4

Duilleagan air a’chiad craobh daraich 7/5 23/4 20/5 29/4 1/5 6/5

Duileagan air craobh-uinnsinn 8/5 17/5 11/5 13/5 6/5

Raineach a’ nochdadh 12/5 18/5 29/4 9/5 8/5 17/4 10/5

Meanbh-chuileagan a biteadh 27/5 27/5 17/5 2/6 17/5

Duilleagan a’tighinn air fhaidhbhile dhubh 4/5 28/4 +9/5 27/4 10/5 7/5 2/5

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the latest on the new Belford Hospital Background This should be read in conjunction with the Question and Answer (Q&A) Document Q&A No 1, available on NHS Highland website.

NHS Highland has confirmed that a replacement for the Belford Hospital in Fort William is required as part of a wider redesign of local health and social care services in Lochaber. The redesign will look at the balance between services provided at home, in the community, in care homes as well as in the hospital.

Question & Answer No. 1, published in August 2017, largely focussed on what will be provided in the new hospital. This has prompted a number of follow up queries which we summarise below.

Questions and Answers No 2

SERVICE PLANNING

Will the predicted changes in the

population be allowed for in plans?

Yes. A number of planning assumptions will be made including any new local developments, population predictions, age profile of the workforce, recruitment challenges as well as advances in medicine and technology. For instance NHS Highland is aware of planned expansions at the Smelter.

Given all the pressures will the

hospital be down-graded?

No. That is not what the plan is. But there are challenges to overcome particularly around senior medical staffing such as consultant surgeons and physicians.

Is there a possibility that the new

Belford will be staffed like Caithness General Hospital and be

Rural Practitioner-led and not

consultant-led?

As set out in Q&A No. 1, the plan for senior medical cover in the new Belford Hospital is that it will be consultant-led. Exactly how it will be staffed is still being considered. It is worth pointing out that Caithness General Hospital is also a consultant-led

service. Senior medical staffing is provided through a combination of locally based consultants (anaesthetist and surgeon), with consultant physicians and surgeons working in the hospital but rotating from Raigmore.

There is also a small team of Rural Practitioners based in the hospital. Locum consultant cover is used to cover any gaps. Rural Practitioners have enhanced skills in emergency care and resuscitation. They are usually GPs who have had extended training or consultants in Emergency Medicine.

Is there a possibility that the

hospital won’t be built at all?

While nothing can be 100% certain, everyone is working towards building a replacement hospital as part of wider redesign of services. This is subject to the business case being prepared, and approved by the Scottish Government. The five year capital plan (funding for future buildings) which was considered by the board of NHS Highland on 27 March includes indicative funding for the replacement for the Belford.

SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS

Is building the new hospital a chance

to do things differently and improve

efficiency and access?

Definitely, but we don’t need to wait for a new hospital to make improvements. Local staff are always striving to carry out improvement work. The current building, however, limits some developments and the new building will make it easier to improve access and deliver modern services.

What is being put in place to avoid

people having to travel long

distances for very short

appointments?

A number of things including the roll out of NHS Near Me.

What is NHS Near Me?

One element of NHS Near Me is to use technology for remote consultations with specialist staff. It includes the use of the most up to date technology to reduce the need for people to travel. NHS Near Me appointments will initially take place in the Belford, and you will see your consultant or other specialist via a video link. It will also be possible for some people to have their appointment in their own home or in local health and social care facilities.

Testing this out does not need to wait for the new hospital, and we hope to confirm a plan for local use in the next few months once initial testing has been evaluated.

Use of technology will not replace hands-on care and will only be used when appropriate.

WORKFORCE

What is being done to ensure that

enough staff can be recruited to the hospital?

A lot of thought is going into this national problem. There is no single or easy answer and it will require different solutions over the short, medium and longer term. Senior clinicians and managers are looking at different options as to what the best way to staff the hospital will be.

While recruitment is a challenge, retention is also problematic. This is because of the onerous on-call arrangements. Work is also underway to look at how this might be improved.

HOSPITAL SERVICES

What services will be provided in the hospital?

These will be similar to those provided at present but more detail should become clear in the next few months.

Can we improve the appointment

system in Raigmore to take into

account local individual circumstances?

Yes. This already happens in a number of specialities in Raigmore where patients are given some choice around their appointments.

How many hospital beds are there

currently in the Belford?

There are 44. The combined assessment unit has 17 beds; Ward 1 has 15 beds; there are 10 day case beds and two beds in the High Dependency Unit.

How many hospital beds will there be

in the future?

It is likely to have around the same number. A detailed assessment will be made of future needs. This is likely to become clear in the next few months.

Will there be specialist mental

health beds incorporated in the new

hospital?

No.

It has been suggested that all the

beds will be located in single rooms?

This is correct. It is current Scottish Government Policy that all new build hospitals will be built with single en suite rooms.

Have any concerns been expressed

about single rooms?

While the majority of people tend to be in favour of single rooms some people do have some concerns. This is mostly around a fear of being isolated, not having other patients to look out for them and fear of not seeing staff so much. Such concerns will be addressed through the design of the building, including communal eating areas and spaces.

contd on next page

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Will there be adequate parking

spaces?

Yes. The number of spaces that will be required will be determined as part of the planning application.

Will there be a bus stop, taxi rank,

waiting area, bike shed close to

entrance with covered seated area?

Yes that is what is being proposed. There is a Transport and Access Group overseeing this part of the plan.

Will it be possible to have live

information bus displays outside and

in waiting areas?

Yes.

Is there a plan to have a helipad at

the new hospital?

Yes.

Questions & Answers No 3 It is also important for everyone to be thinking about what is required to look after general health and well-being of the local population. We will also actively engage with younger people to hear direct from them about their views on services.

It is often the case that we all focus on services provided in hospitals. Thankfully most people spend only a tiny amount of time receiving hospital care. Thinking about the range of local services and support is really important and will be the focus of Q&A No.3. Please send in any questions you have and the Communications and Engagement Group will seek answers on behalf of the local community.

We plan to publish the next Q&A No 3 around June 2018.

Maimie Thompson, Chair Maimie.thompson@nhs.net 01463 704722

Sandy Stoddart, Vice-Chair AStoddart@churchofscotland.org.uk 01631 740 285

Ross Mackenzie, Area Manager – West Ross.mackenzie@nhs.net 01349 869268

Maimie Thompson from NHS

is attending KCC’s meeting

on Monday 25th June

Kilmallie Hall 7:30pm

Do come along if you want to ask her any questions

about the new hospital.

All welcome

When Rio Tinto first announced the strategic review of the smelter, there was widespread concern amongst employees and local residents. I know it was a period of uncertainty and I remember saying at hustings prior to the election that neither the Government nor I would leave any stone unturned in trying to find a solution. Since then, we’ve had the brilliant news that not only would the smelter continue, but that the new owner planned to expand operations and employ more people. The smelter is not just important for Fort William, but for the West Highlands and Scotland as a whole. In terms of the technicalities of the Government’s support, I think it is better that I quote in full:

“The underwriting arrangement that exists, agreed on commercial terms and for which the Government charges a commercial fee, is designed to guarantee long-term predictable energy costs for the Lochaber Smelter. The guarantee provides long-term predictable energy costs for the Lochaber Smelter due to a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) existing between two companies, SIMEC Energy (which runs the GFG Alliance’s energy production facilities) and Liberty British Aluminium (who run the smelter). Prices over the lifetime of the PPA are fixed at the outset according to the forecast of a leading energy industry consultancy. The PPA guarantee involves the Government guaranteeing to meet the future power purchase obligations of the aluminium smelter at Fort William in the event of a default.”

Local authorities, including Highland Council, are funded largely by a grant from the Scottish Government. In addition to this, they also keep all Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rates income raised in the area. The grant to Highland Council this year was very fair, and included slight increases in both revenue (for day to day spending) and capital (for infrastructure). Despite cuts to the Scottish Government budget, Highland Council has been relatively well-protected. Despite this, it is clear that budgets are tight across the board and so it is imperative that Highland Council’s priorities reflect the greatest needs.

Each council receives its share of funding according to a formula, which is agreed between the Scottish Government and the Coalition of Scottish Local Authorities. In addition to the main grant, there is also a special islands needs allowance which is provided to local authorities which have island communities, such as Highland Council. This aims to compensate authorities for any additional costs of island communities.

The only taxes which Highland Council collect directly are Council Tax and Non Domestic Rates income. Last year, the Government lifted the freeze on Council Tax. The freeze protected hard-working families who were already struggling to make ends meet during the financial crisis. During the freeze, Highland Council was compensated in full for any revenue they would have received if Council Tax had not been frozen and so there was no financial hit to local services because of the freeze. In fact, independent sources suggest local authorities were over-funded. Since the freeze was lifted, Highland Council has increased Council Tax by 3% every year. Anything higher than 3% would hit families extremely hard. All of the increased Council Tax revenues go straight into Council coffers.

The UK Government has cut funding to the Scottish Government since the Conservatives came to power in 2010 as part of their austerity agenda. Over the ten years to 2019/2020, the Scottish Government’s day to day spending will have been cut by £2.6 billion by the UK Government. This of course has an impact on the grant that can be passed on to Local Authorities.

Kate Forbes MSP Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch

Constituency office: 01349 863 888 Mobile: 07825532230

To balance their budget, Highland Council increasingly have to:

• cut public services • cut their funding to other

organisations who provide public services, and

• introduce higher direct charges for public services.

This impacts on us all in Highland, but most heavily on those most in

need and already struggling. How are Local Authorities funded

by the Scottish Government?

How and why does the Scottish Government curtail Local

Authorities' freedom to adjust taxes to help meet their budget

shortfall?

Does the UK Government curtail the Scottish Government's

freedom to adjust funding for Local Authorities, and if so how?

Has Liberty been offered any assurance of supply of energy at a subsidised rate, either routinely or in contingent circumstances (such as non-availability of its own hydro and windpower)?

missives from MSPs It’s the turn again for our constituency MSP, Kate Forbes. This time we asked her two questions...

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Well, it has been a long cold winter and spring not much better. However the gardens

are now looking good and we are able to enjoy the fruits of all the hard work. Like most of the gardens round here we have been battling the rabbit invasion. This has resulted in the whole garden being rabbit-proofed with netting. We tried a humane cat trap, chasing them etc, but nothing worked and short of letting the whippet loose, netting wire, hammer and nails and lots of hope was our solution. All the bedding plants are in and seem to be doing well; hanging baskets, window boxes and tubs need regular watering. If I remember, they also get fed with tomato fertilizer. I am told dead-heading is a good idea but never seem to get round to it. Oh well!

The veg garden is ok at the moment. Broad beans are looking fine and we have taken the tips out to stop them getting too tall and to stop black fly. The carrots are tucked under Enviromesh against carrot fly. We have tried two new varieties this year, Resistafly and Flyaway. No idea if they will taste good or if their supposed fly resistance will work. The climbing French beans have survived so far but a gale will put paid to them I think. We have three varieties of potato, Charlotte, Pink Fir Apple and King Edward: some of them are in bags and we need to keep an eye on water and keep topping them up with soil. We planted parsnips in a large plastic tub last year and this worked very well and they were nice and straight. Courgettes are in grobags outside: we tried them in the greenhouse but they got too big and we had to hack our way in. Need to remember to pick off the side shoots of tomatoes.

Anyone who watches Gardeners’ World will be aware of Monty Don's compost bins. Our 'compost' bin looks nothing like his! We have two and do our best but they just end up like garden soil. We put kitchen waste, grass cuttings and the hens’ bedding onto them. The afore-mentioned hens then eat all the kitchen waste which sort of defeats the purpose. We do however get a constant supply of lovely fresh eggs. If you put tea bags on the compost heap make sure they don't have plastic in them. Have a good time in your gardens. Morag Mackell

green fingers

letters Dear KCC,

I first discovered sea sickness at about the age of 5 or 6 in Loch Lochy on board the canal tug, Scot II. My mother’s uncle, Alec Grant, was the skipper and it may have come as a surprise to him that I was clearly no sailor when my family was packed with seafarers and master mariners. At the time the Scot was pulling the vessel in the photo (top right), the canal dredger. At that time it didn’t have that superstructure, rather a big steam driven dredge. In the middle of Loch Lochy they opened doors in the bottom of its hull and dumped the silt and muck that had been dredged from the floor of the canal. I was too busy being sick to pay much attention. Recently the dredger has re-appeared at Banavie. Sold by the canal it became a floating restaurant and now it has become a floating home and support vessel for events. AD Cameron’s history of the canal has a photo of Scot II, the hulk of which now lies at Fort Augustus but I wonder if any readers of the newsletter have a photo of either the dredger or the lock lifter that she used to tow?

Ronald Cameron Photo of the gate lifter from John Stafford’s collection of old photos.

More stories of the canal tug Scot II In next issue hopefully

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page 29 our Highland councillors’ corner

The planned expansion of Liberty will not impact on Highland Council's budget, as Highland Council does not pay for that type of work through the revenue or capital budgets. However the Highland Council is building affordable housing (subject to planning) to meet the needs of people in Lochaber who cannot afford to compete in the open market. Affordable housing includes, social rent, mid-market rent and low cost home ownership. No housing is being built by Highland Council for Liberty, rather it is for an assessment needs in Lochaber, in partnership with Scottish Government and its housing partners. The housing needs and assessment takes account of the economic activity in the area which obviously includes the smelter expansion.

Any council housing built as part of the affordable housing programme is funded through the Scottish Government grant, prudential borrowing (which is repaid through the rents collected for all the council housing) and the Highland Council Landbank Fund (gathered from second/holiday homes extra rates). Highland Council does carry traditional housing debt which is also paid from rents (not Highland Council budget) as the houses still belong to Highland Council having not been transferred in the 80's due to the wishes of tenants. The Housing

Revenue Account belongs to the householders but is administered by the council.

The Highland Council and Scottish Government anticipate spending over £60 million in new affordable housing over a 5 year period in Lochaber, however there is no additional impact on the Highland Council budget as the rent from the new houses covers the cost of the prudential borrowing. Of course Liberty may build housing themselves for sale or direct rent to their own workers and private developers may also decide to build speculative housing for sale due to the expansion of the smelter and increased demand for homes, but that will be a commercial decision for those companies to make.

There inevitably will be extra demand and pressure on services, and infrastructure, when the planned expansion goes ahead, but that will also be mitigated by extra commercial and domestic rates being collected in Lochaber. All this has also to be balanced and judged against the economic prosperity developments such as these bring.

Cllr Allan Henderson (Independent)

Expansion of the smelter should not directly impact the Council's finances negatively, but the way Councils are currently funded means there is the potential for it to impact negatively. The needed investment in housing, for example, is ring-fenced from the financing of day-to-day Council services so should not harm Council finances. However, economic growth will create more demand for Council services and this extra demand cannot be met fully from the Council Tax the extra houses will generate - it's simply not a large enough proportion of Council income to pay for the schools, road use and other services. This extra demand will have to be met from increased grant funding from the Scottish Government.

The broad issue raised by this question is how local infrastructure is funded. Councils can fund infrastructure from Council Tax receipts but they do not do this explicitly. Council Tax makes up a very small proportion of Council income and the rest is Scottish Govt grants, so most local infrastructure - be it roads, housing, schools etc. - is funded from the Scottish Government either directly or through grants to local councils.

There may be valid reasons for the Scottish Govt to want to keep tight control of the purse strings. But making Councils almost very largely dependent on central government for funding isn't efficient. One of the biggest issues is that Councils have no direct return from economic growth in their areas. To take Liberty specifically, the new wheel plant and all the economic activity that goes with it will increase tax receipts substantially. Fort William will become a bigger economic area. The Council will not receive direct return from the investment that is necessary to support that growth.

This is the argument that is often cited for an increased proportion of Council income to come from local taxation, including ideas like a land value tax, local sales or income tax, tourist tax etc.. Such measures would mean the Council's income from taxation grows directly with the economic value that is created. Currently we have a system where the increased tax receipts go to the Scottish Govt first and then we have to hope we get a fair share back.

Cllr Ben Thompson (Independent)

With community concerns about the potential impact of impending change,

KCC put the following to our Highland Councillors.

I would like to apologise for not producing anything for your cur-rent newsletter. I am sorry but I had completely misunderstood the format - not realising we should make individual contribu-tions. By the time I discovered it was too late to submit anything well-researched. As an ex-schoolteacher I am aware that this excuse may strike some as very lame - along the lines of 'the dog ate my homework'

- but I promise to be more diligent and timely in the future. Hoping for your indulgence - on this occasion! Best wishes Cllr Denis Rixson Scottish Liberal Democrats

We understand that as Highland Council taxpayers, we are still

paying off the loan taken out to build houses for the influx of pulp

mill employees 50 years ago?

How much is Highland Council going to have to pay for the housing,

services and infrastructure needed to enable Liberty's planned

expansion? How will it be funded?

How will it impact on Highland Council's budget, on the people

who are already suffering the impact of heavy service cuts and on

future generations?

A fantastic gig from the fantastic Poozies back in May - great music, great craic, and some brilliant interaction

from the younger folk in the front row! Unfortunately we had to cancel our June gig with the Rubber Wellies at the last minute due to bereavement. But another really great

night coming up...

Saltfishforty are must-see musicians singers - the very best of the vibrant contemporary traditional Orkney

scene.

Don’t miss them. Thursday 16th August

Ben Nevis Distillery 7:30 for 8pm

Email creelevents@gmail.com for ticket info and to be added to our mailing list

Susie and Mandy

In the top graph, the bottom wavy line shows the external air temperature and can be seen to be reaching above 30°C on three of the days (peaks are daytime temperatures, troughs are night time). The dark line shows the operative temperature (the average of the air temperature and internal surface temperatures to measure comfort) for the typical existing building, which looks pretty uncomfortable; almost always above the outdoor air temperature and reaching a maximum temperature of 35°C. But the model with Passive House standards of insulation and air-tightness (the top grey line) is much worse; above 38°C for the whole period and reaching a peak of 46°C. So in a really poorly designed building, one in which the designer has given no thought to overheating at all, and in which the occupants don’t think to, or can’t (security, noise, midges) open the windows to cool off, insulation and air-tightness can indeed make overheating much more severe. Buildings with big, unshaded glazing facing south, east or west are surprisingly common. Insulating and sealing buildings to current building regulations will cause these buildings to have severe a overheating problem (yes, even in Scotland!). Putting in

Passive House levels of insulation and air-tightness, without taking other measures to reduce the overheating risk, will make the problem worse still. But it doesn’t have to be like this. By designing our buildings carefully, thinking about summer comfort as well as winter comfort, we can move away from our ‘warm jumper’ analogy and back to our ‘thermos flask’ one. For the next two models I reduced the size of the southern glazing to 30% of the wall area, added a 1m deep overhang above the window, reduced the gains from appliances by 30%, the gains from lighting by 50% (equivalent to switching to LEDs from old style ‘low energy’ CFL lighting) and allowed windows to open during the night time. The temperatures, over the same week of weather, for the two improved models are shown in the second graph. Note that the scale has changed from the first graph. The measures I’ve taken to reduce overheating are effective for both the poorly-insulated and the well-insulated buildings, with peak internal temperatures (dark line for the poorly insulated building, grey line for the well insulated building) now being below peak external temperatures (lower thin line) for both buildings. But the improvement is much bigger for the well-insulated building (grey line), which now is experiencing peak temperatures more than 2°C lower than those of the poorly insulated building. The equilibrium temperature in the middle of the day for the well insulated building is still much higher than for the poorly insulated one, but because the building is gaining heat so slowly it doesn’t get near to it before cooler night-time temperatures arrive and the building can cool down once more. In summary it is possible to design low-

energy buildings that perform better in winter and in summer, through careful attention to reduction of summer heat gains, but current building regulations do not do enough to ensure this. If you are in the process of having a home built for you, or thinking of it, ask your architect/designer about overheating. If you get the impression they haven’t thought very much about it then be concerned and seek expert advice. I’d say this even if your house is being built ‘only’ to current building regulations. The Passive House standard includes a criterion for overheating. I’d recommend trying to do much more than merely just meeting those criteria. Low-energy buildings that are robust to summer overheating risk will become increasingly important as our climate warms. The modelling I’ve done here was quick and approximate, merely to illustrate the point. Further improvements in the summer performance of the highly insulated building could have been made. Internal heat gains could have been reduced further still (by specifying all A+++ rated appliances, daylight/occupancy control on the lighting and a well designed hot water system), and a smart ‘summer bypass’ mode could have been implemented on the heat recovery ventilation (MVHR) so that cool air would be ventilated into the house when the outdoor air temperature was low but that the heat recovery would still work to keep the cool in during the hotter periods. All of these things would be a good idea in the real world, and would further increase the summer performance advantage shown by the well-insulated building. Es Tresidder es@leangreenconsulting.co.uk www.leangreenconsulting.co.uk

CREEL is the local not-for-profit community group bringing small scale gigs to venues in and around Kilmallie.

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Banavie Quarry The current consent for quarry operations at Banavie runs until 2023. Well in advance of this expiring, Breedon intend to submit a planning application in the autumn for consent to continue operations until 2043 and to extend the footprint area of the quarry. For applications of this nature, they are obliged to hold a community consultation prior to submitting the application. This they did on 7th May at the Rugby Club, which about 50 people attended.

Some of the information that they presented at the consultation is included on the following two pages. If you would like larger scale colour versions of these and additional display boards, please email us at newsletter@kilmallie.org.uk.

KCC attended the consultation. Views we heard being expressed to Breedon included: • relief that no extension of working

hours was involved • concern that their need to extend

the quarry was to some degree a consequence of their failing to meet the conditions of the present consent to landscape the back face

• concern over dust and noise • concern over lorry speeds • concern over increased requests for

night time working. The quarry ‘s current consent does not permit night time working. But with significant recent road repairs and alterations in and around Fort William, they frequently receive requests from Transport Scotland and BEAR to service night time road works. Breedon cannot accede to these requests if local residents

object. Most residents do not object to it happening occasionally for short times - we all benefit if local road repairs can be carried out at night to minimise delays, closures and inconvenience. But increasingly frequent requests from BEAR, and for longer periods, are causing residents significant concern.

• desire for local ecology and species to be reflected when the back face of the quarry is restored

• desire for a condition that the back face of the quarry is regraded and restored before further extraction is permitted

• concern about the threat to the ecological and environmental value of the unimproved pasture land SE of the quarry, either through neglect or inappropriate development.

If you have any comments about Breedon’s proposals, please contact Gavin Mennie, Breedon’s Director of Estates, Planning and Geology, see email below, but also do please let KCC know so that we can represent the community’s views when the planning application is submitted.

KCC have asked Breedon for some cross sections to show the difference between the existing and proposed back face of the quarry, and also for an image to illustrate the impact on the appearance of the quarry as seen from the Blar.

Why not go along to Quarry Liaison Group meetings

The quarry liaison group generally meets twice a year. Breedon emphasised that individual residents are most welcome to attend - Gavin Mennie said he would encourage everyone who feels affected by quarry operations to attend these meetings. If you would like to be informed of meeting dates, agendas and to receive minutes, please contact him. The next meeting will also include a tour of the quarry. Do go along if you want to see on the ground the implications of Breedons’ proposals to extend their working area. Please let them know if you would like to attend.

Next meeting: 3pm, August 21st at Banavie Quarry

STOP PRESS Also... special meeting of the Liaison Group 4pm, Wed 27th June at Banavie Quarry Breedon have been asked by BEAR and Transport Scotland to arrange this special meeting to discuss the regional road maintenance programme and the planning constraints that are in place at the quarry. Contact Gavin Mennie for final confirmation of date and time.

Contact details for Gavin Mennie: Director of Estates, Planning and Geology Breedon Northern Limited Ethiebeaton Quarry, Monifieth Angus , DD5 3RB

gavin.mennie@breedongroup.com

Interesting things KCC learned

at the consultation:

Breedon is the ‘E’ not the ‘B’ in

BEAR (because they used to be

called Ennstone. BEAR stands for Babtie, Ennstone And

Ringway, the original companies

in the consortium. BEAR is now

an alliance of Eurovia, Jacobs

and Breedon Group plc.

The rock from Banavie is

typically used on projects within

a 25mile radius of the quarry.

carbon papers

Do low-energy buildings have an overheating problem? In this issue I take a quick look at the physics behind summer overheating problems and unpack claims that high levels of insulation make the problem worse or more likely. New homes, even those built merely to building regulations standard (otherwise known as the worst performing home you can legally build) are much better insulated and much more airtight than the vast majority of homes built in the past. Homes built to Passive House standard are even better insulated, and radically more airtight. It is sometimes claimed that all this attention on improving the winter performance of homes is causing them to overheat more often, or more severely, than the leaky homes of old. On the face of it this seems obvious – in the winter you put on warm clothing to stay warm, but do the same on a warm summer’s day and you’ll get too hot. Indeed, that is the slant taken by the Daily Mail (so it must be true!). It’s not quite so simple as this, but the claims are not completely unfounded either. Let’s take a quick look at the physics involved. Insulation and airtightness are good at slowing the flow of heat from a warm place to a cold one. In winter this means that a well-insulated, airtight home needs less heating to maintain a comfortable temperature than a poorly-insulated, leaky home. The insulation is slowing the flow of heat from the warm inside of the house to the cold outside. The same is true of a warm coat on a cold day, it is slowing the flow of heat from your body to the cold outside world, meaning you need to burn less energy in order to stay warm. The warm-coat analogy doesn’t work so well in summer. UK temperatures during hot weather reach the high 20s, and occasionally the low 30s, which is still below the temperature of your body. The insulation in a coat is no longer useful when we are trying to stay cool because, unlike in winter, we want the heat flow from our body to the outside world to be high. Conversely, temperatures in a house should be in the low-to-mid 20s, which is below temperatures experienced outside during heatwaves. The heat flow should be in the opposite direction to our ‘warm jumper’

example. In these conditions insulation and air-tightness will slow the rate of heat flow from the hot outside to the cool inside, which is exactly what we want. Just as a thermos flask can keep a drink hot by slowing the rate of heat flow from inside to outside, it can also keep a drink cool by slowing the rate of heat flow in the other direction. But houses are not thermos flasks and very well insulated homes do sometimes overheat. They sometimes overheat very badly. Why? A house on a hot day gains heat from several sources, some from inside the house (appliance use, hot water use and storage, body heat) and some from outside the house (conduction through the walls/floor/roof from the warm outside or from sun-heated surfaces of walls and roofs, ventilation/infiltration bringing warm air in and the sun shining through the windows). Insulation and air-tightness help to reduce the gains shown in bold but do nothing to reduce the others. (In fact triple glazed windows also reduce solar gains a little, but I’ve ignored this here for simplicity’s sake If these heat gains are high enough, for example on a sunny day in a house with lots of glazing, then a house can become warmer than the outdoor air temperature. When that happens insulation and air-tightness go from being your friend (keeping the heat out) to being your foe (keeping the heat in). A house that is gaining heat much more quickly than it is losing it will warm up until the gains match the losses (heat losses increase as the difference in temperature between inside and outside increases). We call this the equilibrium temperature. In a

poorly insulated, leaky house the equilibrium temperature will never be very much higher than the outside temperature because there is so little to stop the heat flowing out of the house. In a very well insulated house the equilibrium temperature can be much higher since it is so well insulated and air-tight. It takes a big temperature difference for the heat losses to match the heat gains. We are back to our warm-coat analogy. To illustrate this I built a simple model using DesignBuilder – a dynamic simulation tool that allows us to model the performance of a building over time. My model was a simple 10 m by 5 m medium-weight building in London. I made four versions of the model. The first two were deliberately designed to overheat – with large (80% of the wall area), unshaded glazing on the south aspect and no attempt to reduce internal gains and no window opening. One of these versions was constructed to represent a ‘typical’ existing building (100mm insulation in the loft, no insulation in the walls or floor, basic double glazing, poor air-tightness), the other was constructed to represent a building with Passive House levels of insulation, glazing and airtightness (although not a Passive House standard building, since in order to reach the standard summer comfort criteria must be met (The Passive House standard includes a requirement that buildings must not exceed 25°C more than 10% of the time, so this building wouldn’t actually meet the Passive House standard, I’ve just chosen typical Passive House values for insulation and air-tightness for illustration). They were both simulated during two weeks of very hot summer weather. contd overpage

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40th Annual Exhibition

ART LOCHABER is going back in time for the 2018 Annual Exhibition, 40 years in fact, and the show this year is to be held 27th July – 11th August, 10am - 6pm daily.

Founder member of the group of artists, and former Head of the Art Department at Lochaber High School, Alistair Smyth, will be doing the honours on the Opening Night.

The Exhibition will take place in the delightful space at the Ben Nevis Distillery, Fort William, the show’s venue since 2000. There have been various venues over the 40 years but the distillery is self-contained, spacious and very popular.

Art Lochaber is a lively innovative group whose members hail from all over the Lochaber area, often travelling great distances to attend events. The artists look forward to welcoming you to their 40th annual show, which will include a broad range of work in mixed media, oil, watercolour, pastel, batik and wood.

All are welcome to browse or buy.

Lorna Finlayson

Summer strolls While we have hills a-plenty in Kilmallie to walk up, we are also fortunate to have many lower level walks to enjoy as an outing with the family, or on your own to enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of our area. One such walk is the Erracht Oakwood walk. To get there you go up the back road from Banavie towards Gairlochy, turn left after the bridge over the River Loy and park at the small car park by the forestry track. Go through the gate and carry on along the flattish track, ignoring tracks going up to the right or down to the left. If feeling energetic you can turn up to the right after about ¾ mile onto a steepish path that leads up, along, then down through the mature oakwood. Our Scottish oaks are sessile oaks (quercus petraea)– they are characterised by being taller and narrower than English oaks and have no stalks on their acorns which are instead attached directly to the outer twigs. Check this out! After descending this narrow path return back along the main track until you reach where you turned uphill a

wee while ago - if you decided to do this - then turn right onto the track just about opposite the turn up to the oaks. This track descends gently towards the River Loy. Turn left to follow the track back to where you started, walking parallel to the river, watching out for dragonflies – also for the odd cleg! This is a lovely walk for an early summer day, when the trees are clothed in bright, fresh green, or of course to enjoy the autumn colours of the woodland. Actually, it's a delightful and easy walk at any time of year. The

total distance is 2¾ miles if you include the oakwood trail and you could push an all-terrain buggy (except for the oakwood path). There is lots for children to look out for – red squirrels, acorns, wild flowers. The bottom path can be a bit muddy at times - but that's Kilmallie for you! You can look this walk up online for further details on the flora and fauna – Walkhighlands.co.uk and Wildlochaber.com

Sue Chadney Thanks to Wild About Lochaber for permission to use this photo

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KILMALLIE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS FUND The AGM of the Christmas Lights Fund was held in Kilmallie Community Centre on Tuesday 17th May 2018. The chairman delivered a short report of the group’s activities over the last year. The main priority of the group over the last twelve months has been to maintain and, where possible, to improve the quality of the Christmas displays and we feel that we have been fairly successful in this.

The Pole Lights operated well with very few failures although we do recognise that some of the older lights are past their best. We will attempt to freshen these up by replacing some lengths of the fluorescent tubing over the summer. Unfortunately two of our best lights could not be displayed due to the fact that, despite several requests from us, BEAR have not replaced the fittings on two of the new lamp standards. We will continue to pursue this with BEAR.

Our biggest problem with the pole lights has been getting them up and down each year. This is due mainly to the inexperience (and decrepitude!) of our construction team. Consequently we were immensely grateful to Robert Skinner (Thistle Access) for coming to our rescue this year and for completing both tasks so safely and quickly. Robert has offered to help again next year if pressure of his other commitments allow.

The Christmas Trees were greatly improved and much admired this year. The trees were larger and more shapely than in previous years and the purchase of some new low voltage LED lights made a huge difference. The recurrent problem with the Corpach lights failing seems to have been solved by the installation of a more highly-rated circuit breaker. Thanks to Robbie Milne and Dougie Dykes for this latter. The stabilizing gizmo devised by Willie Fortune and constructed and donated by MacPherson Welding has resolved the problem of the tree blowing down.

The Switch-On Ceremony was held on 17th November 2017 and was once again well attended and a very convivial affair. Three youngsters from local primary schools performed the ceremony in front of about 80 people and afterwards we were all treated to an amazing array of cakes and refreshments from Tanya Ross and her team from STAR for Harris. Many thanks to them and to all who turned out on the night. We now seem to have an established format for this occasion and will probably stick with it in future - all very weather dependent of course!

Finance - our main source of finance this year has been, once again, the Race Night at the Tradewinds and we are extremely grateful to Linda and Duncan for their continuing support. Linda’s brother, Brian, was a terrific announcer for this event which was held in October. Duncan has been unwell recently and members of the group send him our very best wishes.

Future activities for the Group will include an assessment of the pole lights and any necessary repairs. We also need to keep a close watch on our finances to ensure that we always have a working reserve of funds in case of last minute problems or repairs.

We are always on the lookout for new members to join the group. If interested please contact our secretary, Andy Wilmington, on 772499, or any members of the committee.

In conclusion we must acknowledge the help and support we receive from members of the community. Without them there would be no Christmas Lights: • Tradewinds staff and customers • Robert Skinner (Thistle Access) • STAR for Harris • Stuart Hood and Gary Servant • Robbie Milne and Council Lighting Dept • Gordon Penman, Slipway Autos • MacPhersons Welding • Joy Biggin • Jimmy Milne.

On a personal note, the chairman thanked fellow committee members for their hard work and support over the last twelve months.

Paul Brian Chairman

News from Corpach Woods

Thanks to the volunteers who came to our successful work party in the Cnoc nam Faobh oak wood at the beginning of May.

Our main job was to go along the main path cutting back overhanging vegetation. We also completed the usual litter pick which amongst other things produced an old rusty sheet of corrugated iron, lengths of rope and also lots of bits of plastic, the remains of artificial flowers blown from the neighbouring graveyard. We also removed an old rope swing which had become dangerously frayed and we finished off by removing a few alien species, rhododendron and sitka spruce.

Along with all other organisations we are having to cope with the new data regulations. We have a membership list which is kept by the company secretary. It has members'

names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. All our communications are by email or by news items in this community newsletter. If you have any questions, if you are not sure if you are a member, or if you wish to become one, then you can contact the secretary or any of our directors. Our directors are: John Ireland, Simon Wells, Angela Mercer, Colin Gray, Jan MacLugash, Alan Thomson and Gill Barnes. Our members' data is not used for any purpose other than making contact. If you are a member and do not receive emails about our meetings or work parties, then you can add your email address to our mailing list by emailing me at pjbiggin@gmail.com

Paul Biggin

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notice of planning application

Annual Inter School Tag Rugby Competition

We held our annual Inter School Tag Rugby Competition on Wednesday 9th May , unfortunately the weather wasn't as kind as the previous year, but all the boys and girls attending gave their all and showed off their newly acquired skills - there was some great rugby played and hopefully some of the players will have caught the Rugby Bug...and come along and join us at our regular training Sessions at Banavie.

A massive thank you to all the schools who attended and to Bridget Thomas and her band of Active School Co-ordinators - we couldn't run this without their support. Thanks must also go to Ryan Davies, Community Coach, Stevie & Ailsa McAleer and all the Rugby Club volunteers who came along to help with refereeing the games.

The winners in the morning were: P4-P5 - Caol PS and P6-P7 Lundavra PS The winners in the afternoon were S1-S2 - Mallaig HS 'B' Team.

We also had a surprise visitor on the same day - The Calcutta Cup. This was brought up to the Clubhouse for all the boys and girls to see and have the photograph taken with it. The kids loved it....even the big ones got in on the act!

See you all next year ☺

Pitch Repairs We at currently off our pitch at Banavie as it is going under its annual maintenance - all rugby training has been moved to the King George V Park (next to the leisure centre). The Youth Awards/last day is on Saturday 16th June.

1XV End of Season Result Well that's the season finished for the 1XV - this year we played in a new league - BT West Division 3. We have enjoyed our first year in the league and finishing in 5th place. We look forward to improving our position next season. We hope our players enjoy their summer break. If you fancy giving rugby a try next season, come and join us when our pre season training starts. Watch out for announcements on our Facebook page and website. www.lochaberrfc.co.uk Pauline Donaldson New players of all abilities are welcome – if you fancy giving rugby a try, come and see us at Banavie. We are 1st left after the Moorings Hotel www.lochaberrfc.co.uk

Kilmallie 1st team has been playing well and is currently top of the National Division. The team played Ballachulish on the 12th May in the 1st round of the Camanachd Cup and the teams also played for the Iain Aitchison Cup (this cup wasn’t played for in 2017 to due to weather) and Kilmallie beat Ballachulish in this game. Both teams met again on the 26th May in a Balliemore Cup game and played for the Iain Aitchison Cup for the 2018 year, once again Kilmallie came out on tops. It was nice for both teams to get together to remember Iain who was connected to both clubs.

Kilmallie are through to the Semi Final of the Balliemore Cup and it is being played on Saturday 23rd June against Beauly. Here are the fixtures for late June and July: Saturday 23rd June Beauly Vs Kilmallie (Semi-final of the Balliemore Cup) Boleskine Vs Kilmallie (2nd) Saturday 7th July Inverness Vs Kilmallie Lewis Vs Kilmallie Saturday 14th July Kilmallie Vs Caberfeidh (2nd) Saturday 21st July Kilmallie Vs Inveraray Lochaber Vs Kilmallie Saturday 28th July Kilmallie Vs Fort William Linda Campbell

Kilmallie Shinty Club

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Highland Council have served notice of their intended forthcoming application for Planning Permission in Principle for mixed use development, comprising 200-250 residential units, commercial, hospital, education and community use. on the Blar Mor. As part of the statutory process they are required to carry out a pre-application consultation with the community. This took place on Monday 11th June, unfortunately too late for our copy deadline to report on in this issue. However a representative from the Council has been invited to KCC’s meeting on 25th June. If you weren’t able to get to the consultation on 11th, you are welcome to come along and contribute your views at that meeting.

Monday 25th June, 7:30pm Kilmallie Community Centre

The proposals are shown in the plan opposite.

Some of the things KCC will be considering are:

• does the design adequately address the needs of pedestrians and cyclists?

• does the layout adequately address the needs of children?

• how will pleasant public spaces be created?

• how will the loss of peat as a carbon store be compensated?

• how are low energy principles addressed in the layout?

• when will Highland Council start spelling Blar Mor correctly? ☺

• what impact will the housing development have on the present housing list?

• if the houses are intended to serve an increase in population in the area, is the capacity of existing roads, schools, medical, social and leisure facilities adequate?

• does the plan hint at an intention to create a road link to a new bridge over the River Lochy?

in memory of the blar 3000BC - 2012AD

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wind loads Since February this year the yellow warning notices referring to the Stronelairg wind farm have been in evidence in Kilmallie. As the abnormal loads are to be using our roads until the summer, here is an overview of this project and how it affects Kilmallie residents. Stronelairg Wind Farm is a 66 turbine SSE project located on the Garrogie estate south east of Fort Augustus; it will utilise some of the existing infrastructure at the nearby Glendoe hydro scheme. Construction work started in April 2017 and is expected to be completed in October 2018. The huge vehicles transporting turbine and components were first seen travelling through Corpach in September 2017. After a winter construction break the road movements have recommenced for a further period of 20 weeks. The trucks leave Corpach harbour using the local road network - the A830 from the harbour, then onto the

A82 trunk road heading north, finally turning right onto the B862 to the site entrance. A police escort ensures the safe movement of these large delivery vehicles, access is maintained for emergency vehicles and vehicles are enabled to pass the delivery vehicles safely at a number of points along the route as guided by the police. The harbour at Kyle of Lochalsh is also used as a landing point for the components. Kilmallie residents can check on the schedule of planned abnormal load movements through Corpach by going

onto the SSE website (sse.com/stronelairg). Scroll down the page to find > deliveries then > schedule. Alternatively you can call the Project Liaison Manager on 07342 027420. Chris Strong

After our long winter it was good to see the bulbs along the road when they came up to provide some colour.

Unfortunately, most of the cordylines didn't survive the snow and ice over the winter this year. We have been consulting on possible alternatives for the centre of the tubs and the general feeling is that we should use more native species. So we are trialling a mixture of plants including small Pieris and Box together with some golden evergreen trees and will monitor how good they look and how well they survive. Summer planting is later this year because of the late Spring but should be in place by the time the newsletter comes out. Our plants come from local business, Garden Stop, who are very helpful and source their plants from a west of Scotland grower. We are adding a few more roadside tubs this year and over railing displays opposite the sawmill. Of course all this costs money so please continue to pop your change into the collecting tin at the Co-op. Sue Chadney and Moira Shearer Corpach in Colour co-ordinators

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Liberty Q&A KCC invited Liberty to attend our meeting on 26th March. Rumours had begun to abound about developments related to operations at the smelter and the proposed alloy wheels factory, so we felt we needed some firmer information from Liberty themselves. We were pleased that Duncan Mackison, Chief Executive of Jahama Estates accepted our invitation.

It was a measure of the intense curiosity about Liberty’s intentions that other nearby community councils came along to listen, and there was a good turnout from Kilmallie residents and businesses.

The session, chaired by Christine Hutchison, was intended solely for information gathering, to learn about Liberty’s plans over the next 5, 10, 20 years that might impact directly or indirectly on Kilmallie. It was not a forum for gathering community opinions - there will be further opportunity for this once we are better informed.

Duncan Mackison (DM) was accompanied by Alastair Nicholson (AN) from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Tim Stott (TS), Principal Planner, Highland Council, who supported with further information on strategic development and masterplanning respectively. We were grateful to them all for their contributions.

After Duncan’s short summary of Liberty’s activities, KCC asked some questions, and then the session was opened to some lively questions from the floor. Cllr Allan Henderson (AH) and Sue MacFarlane (SMF) (Vice Principal West Highland College) also contributed some information from the floor.

For those who couldn’t make the meeting we summarise here the main points of Liberty’s presentation, the questions that were asked and the answers we heard. We came away feeling much better informed, but with many other questions forming!

Summary of Liberty’s activities Clarification of names

• GFG** Group - parent company, privately owned

• Liberty - metals production, producing aluminium and steel (elsewhere)

• Jahama Estates - property management

• SIMEC – energy

• Liberty, Jahama and SIMEC all part of the GFG Group.

Five areas of activity 1) Development of alloy wheels factory on site adjacent to smelter

• has gained planning consent end Jan, detailed development and design now ongoing

• will start to go live in 2020

• will use aluminium produced on site to produce wheels. (In UK at moment, all automotive wheels are imported, so ambition is to become significant supplier to UK automotive industry)

• at peak production. aim to produce about 2M wheels per year, about 20% of volume required by UK

• Liberty recently acquired another aluminium smelter in France at Dunkirk, and is currently preferred bidder**** for French alloy wheels business, advantageous to Liberty here because it creates links to distribution of wheels in W Europe and provides greater expertise availability and flexibility

• advantage of wheels production next to smelter - can use liquid aluminium and take it straight to product, rather than producing ingots, cooling, and transporting them. A huge amount of energy is required to remelt the ingots and then process. So there are significant benefits to generate energy locally to smelt aluminium and then convert straight to product.

• impact on distribution and transport infrastructure – 2M wheels pa needs approx 7-8 articulated lorries to leave the factory each day. No option other than road transportation at present

• alloy wheels factory will employ about 400 staff.

• a modern highly automated manufacturing process, so most of roles are high level providing jobs for qualified and aspirant engineers, so majority need to be attracted into the area from elsewhere,

2) Housing Housing capacity is an issue in this area, so Liberty have to create about 300 houses for the people who will come to work at the alloy wheels factory.

• Liberty are looking at this from a number of different angles

• working closely with Highland Council, looking at areas where there is already consent to build new houses

• focussing on a number of different streams of housing provision; people are unlikely to move here and buy a house on day 1 - more likely to work for a few months and then move the family up. Looking at ownership models that will allow people to come and work in area for a while and then possibly choose to buy further downstream.

• considering a number of locations – from sites which Jahama Estate owns itself, through to working with third parties who own land that already has consent for housing, and also working

with Highland Council who have some sites already with consent for development - Liberty might choose to put some of their houses within those developments.

• ground conditions are the biggest challenge from a technical perspective with the obligation to deal with a lot of peat

• they want to think carefully where to build so they provide houses that are affordable for the people who work there, with mortgages fundable at a market rate.

3) Wind energy The estate (114,000 acres) is effectively the water catchment area for the hydro system which provides power for the smelter. To the eastern end of the estate at Laggan they are at the preplanning stage for a windfarm:

• approx 40 turbines to generate approx 170 MW electricity

• the area is adjacent to the Stronelairg wind farm, so from a technical perspective a good area, high wind speeds, adjacent to the Beauly Denny line and the large substation at Melgarve to feed the energy into the grid.

• the energy produced there will be consumed by Liberty themselves

• they see themselves as landowner, producer and consumer of electricity

• it is green energy - they want to consume renewable energy

• it enables them to control the pricing that they pay for the energy for the smelter.

4) Hydro They’re also looking at hydro schemes in a number of locations

• it’s a post-subsidy era so making returns out of hydro is more difficult

• looking at a number of sites throughout the area, eg around Leanachan, just received consent for a scheme at Laroch Bridge, and looking at a couple of other ones as well.

• hydro schemes are an opportunity to generate green energy to consume themselves

• in Scotland they’d like to be able to generate all the electricity needed to supply all their activities, If they couldn’t consume it all here, it would be consumed at either their Dalzell Steel Plant or at Clydebridge.

5) The estate Overall not been well cared for in recent years. A lot of properties on it, most of which are in need of some attention:

• 41 properties ranging in size from former sporting lodges, eg Mamore Lodge and Killiechonate Lodge through to small houses, cottages and bothies

• they’ve completed a structural survey of the buildings and are starting to work up a financial model to renovate them for residential letting or holiday accommodation

• will require a significant amount of investment: they are working on the business case at the moment.

** Gupta Family Group *** JAHAMA Estates is the 5th largest private landowner in Scotland. They own Highland Estates, over 114,000 acres located around Fort William, Kinlochleven and Laggan.

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We hope you have been seeing the improvements to the Kilmallie Community Gardens from each of our monthly sessions. New bushes have been planted, the raised beds painted with creosote and the bed alongside the picnic area has been tidied. We had a great time at the recent ceilidh held on 21st April 2018. A huge thank you to Bobby and Jessie Henderson for all their hard work in arranging the event and we were delighted to announce that

£660 was raised to be split 50/50 between Kilmallie Community Centre and MacMillan Nurses. Customers who have used the Centre over the past few weeks are: Children’s Parties, Lochaber Music Festival, Lochaber Wind Band, George Rodgers Band, The Highland Council, Ballet West, Lochaber Federation WRI, Aye to Aye, SNP, Music for All and Scottish Canoe Association. We were delighted to welcome a new regular booking from Sense Scotland for their Senstronic Music Workshops. We hope they enjoy using our super facilities! Our thanks go to our regular customers for supporting the Centre: The Mustardseed Fellowship, Mothers &

Toddlers, Zumba classes, Scottish Country Dancing, NHS Highland, Olde Tyme Dancing and Kilmallie Community Council. A reminder of the contact details for the Centre which are as follows: Tel: 01397 600111 info@kilmalliecommunitycentre.co.uk Our thanks once more go to our Centre Manager, Jimmy Milne, for all his hard work and commitment to the Centre. We hope all readers and users of the Kilmallie Community Centre have a lovely Summer! Sarah Kennedy FMAAT FCCA (Treasurer)

**** update at 29/05/18 - Liberty won its bid for the last remaining French manufacturer of aluminium wheels, AR Industries (ARI)

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• have to have stalking to manage the deer population, also looking at other sporting developments

• some farming, fairly limited, tends to be just sheep on inbye land: don’t have any other farming aspirations

• a significant amount of forestry: potentially looking at it as source of fuel for biomass projects but will have to sit within a broader planting plan, likely to take place out towards Glenshero.

Questions and Answers Q Is it your intention to bring raw materials in, and product out, by sea, road, or rail? To what extent do you plan to use the existing transport hub facilities at Corpach? Will there be a need to create new facilities and what would be the implications for Kilmallie? A (DM) At the moment the plan is that materials would continue to be brought in by rail and that that product would leave by road. If the port is developed and became an option in the future then we might take advantage of that but at the moment we’re not planning on using it. The one exception to that is that the wheels factory will require gas so there is potentially a requirement to bring in LNG (liquified natural gas) by sea - that’s not the only route it could come in by but that would be something that we might need to look at. We’ve discussed that to a certain extent with Highland Council and I know HIE are looking at that more broadly. A (AN) An engineering study has been commissioned to see if a deepwater facility could be developed with the capability to handle inbound raw material. Once that’s complete if it looks feasible then there’ll be a full masterplanning exercise of the whole Corpach industrial area which would involve much wider consultation. Q if gas is brought in by sea,. how would it be transported from Corpach to the alloy wheels factory? A (DM) Different options are being looked at the moment. A (AN) A number of other pieces of work are going on in the background at the moment: Scotia Gas will be carrying out a gas demand study in the next few weeks. From the public sector perspective we thought could we develop a gas network for other local businesses and households, so we’re looking to see if a gas grid could be feasible. Initially gas could be tankered from port to site and in the longer term possibly develop a pipe network. Q So the gas that the factory would use is the same gas that people would use in their homes for cooking and heating? A (AN) Yes Q Given that for some years we’ve been dealing with public complaints about noise disturbance from Corpach Harbour area, what assurance can you give that activities from development at the port would not increase the noise? A (AN) Any viable development on the site will have to comply with all planning and

environmental health regulations to get planning consent. A (TS) The developer would have to employ a consultant to produce a report to be lodged with any planning proposal. I know that there are noise issues there now and Highland Council are beginning to take action against various parties there. Q There was a Noise Assessment Study undertaken for BSW but nevertheless noise nuisance is still causing a lot of concern. A (TS) If the noise assessment report states a max permitted noise level and if you can prove that they haven’t met that, then you can take action against them at that point. Q That only works if the permitted noise level isn’t actually causing a nuisance. In the case of BSW they probably are complying with their consent but we’re still hearing a lot of complaints. A (TS) If you think the max permitted noise level has been set too high then you would have a fresh chance to ask the council to reduce it. Q We noted a change between the first and second drafts of the Local Plan - it now shows industrial development on Eilean nan Craobh. Is that because of a proposal that Liberty has? And are there any plans that Liberty have that would conflict with the second draft of the Plan? A (DM) Liberty didn’t ask for that change. Q Would the additional housing that you need be tied to employment? A (DM) I don’t know who’s going to provide it yet but we’re looking at lots of different options. We’re coming up with a specification and a volume for the houses, then looking at a location and then we’ll look for a potential partner. It’s likely that the model we follow is one where we are prescriptive about the designs: we’ll control it as opposed to the developer. We need to provide houses for the people who work at the factory. Tim can talk about the Council’s parallel exercise to produce houses for the broader population but it is likely that the two things could be mixed on the same site and there’s potentially a benefit of doing so. A (TS) The Council’s going to be lodging a Permission in Principle planning application soon for the north side of Blar Mor. We’ll undertake community consultation in June before we launch the application. Planning permission is already in place for non-food retail development there. Highland Council bought Miller Development’s land holding there and this new application is going to look at the new Belford, a science and technology centre and housing, probably a first phase of about 80 or 90 houses and a second phase after that, so probably 200 houses on the Blar Mor. With all these new jobs there’s a queue of landowners and affordable housing agencies with sites that have lain dormant for years. The total number of houses built in the urban area is 13 a year so rates of house building have been very low. We’ve had land earmarked for housing for an awful long time: it’s just sat there, often because of the peat. It

needs somebody to pump-prime the site to get the peat off and put the access road in. It takes major investment to do that but if there are all these extra jobs and government funding as well now, then this is an opportunity to open up all these sites. A peat survey has been done in the last few weeks: there are issues about where the peat is going to be moved to, but the Blar is one of the major housing sites that you will see proposals for soon. Q Presumably the Highland Council houses that are built won’t be for Liberty’s employees but for people on the housing list? A (TS) It will be up to the housing agencies to open up a site but most of the big sites will be a mixture of private housing and affordable housing. It needs the public purse to open up the site, put in the road, put in the sewers, and take out the peat, and then it becomes a viable option for a private house builder. We haven’t seen a lot of private house builder interest in the town at all but you might see that change if all these jobs happen very soon... we’ve already had some private house builders taking an interest. Q Given that the current road network and particularly the A82 is operating at full capacity, what plans does Liberty have for supporting public transport to avoid any increase in congestion? A (DM) I don’t think we’ve got any plans to support public transport at the moment We’d like to locate houses where there’s a sustainable transport option for people to commute to work, trying to take commuter traffic off the road and give people the opportunity to come in through a different route. We are obviously aware of the pressure on the A82 and what that’s like in the summer so choosing sites somewhere that won’t add to that problem makes sense. A (AN) HIE are working with HITRANS and Highland Council and have commissioned a transport study with an extensive evidence gathering exercise which has been ongoing over the past 4-6 weeks to understand the issues and challenges of the transport network. That will produce a long list of potential solutions some of which will be sustainable transport solutions, some will be different forms of public transport, and some will include proposed changes to the road network itself. We’re working through that process just now and the output should be in the public domain in the summer. I’m acutely conscious that a development of this scale changes the town, and its infrastructure needs to expand to accommodate it. Q Will the houses you build for employees be ‘tied houses’ so if a person was to leave a job they would have to give up their home? A (DM) We wouldn’t want to get a situation where if you didn’t have your job any more you’d have to move out of your

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page 22 canal news

Just as the season started we were hit with a couple of serious defects that had to be repaired immediately as this would affect navigation. Firstly the jetty at Gairlochy bearers gave up and the jetty was no longer fit for purpose - this jetty was built in 1997 with a 20 year life expectancy and its collapse meant we were restricted in the berthing availability for large craft.

Then at the beginning of the year Corpach jetty fendering timber was ripped off by a visiting craft after rope became entangled behind the timber and attached itself to the vessel’s prop. Both these were a danger to vessel movements and had to be fixed immediately.

The canal is an old structure - it is constantly in need of repair. Defects are always prioritised by our engineering/asset teams. This can be frustrating at times because I think the West should always come first but in the bigger scale of things other areas have higher priorities.

The season has been slightly slower than last year as we have encountered a number of issues.

Laggan Avenue reduced draft due to a build up of silt meaning vessels’ maximum draught at present is 3.5mtr instead of our usual 4.1mtr.

Number of bridge issues at Aberchalder, Tomnachurich & Laggan: these also had an impact on road traffic. The bridges are part of the National Road Network and are BEAR’s responsibility but often it is the canal maintenance team who are called out to carry out repairs in an emergency.

Events Sail Caledonia, Corpach to Moray Firth 26th May to 2nd June. (17 dinghies + support vessels) Three Peaks Yacht Race, Corpach 12th to 14th June. (9 - 10 yachts this year)

Works Prioritised Embankment protection at Woodend Accommodation Bridge. Sunken Drain and road work Shengain Aqueduct. Disabled access Corpach Sea-lock gates (subject to Historic Scotland permission.

Opening times As from 28th May we will be open from 8:00am until 6:00pm – 7 days a week.

Warm weather musings I am now going to take off my supervisor hat and thinking to myself after many days of glorious sunshine how much joy I get from seeing folk use the canal and how important it is to the Highlands, even if you are not a boater. Locally we use it to kayak; walk/jog (sometimes sponsored); cycle; exercise dogs: feed the ducks: walk the prams; sit back relax & sunbathe; horse ride; fish: so many other uses that although we do not get revenue are so important to the local community.

John Stafford Area Superintendent

Top: Work on new Gairlochy jetty & Corpach jetty before local maintenance team repaired it. Below: Key sites- Corpach, Banavie, Moy Bridge & Gairlochy all looking pristine.

Sorry John, we can only afford to print your great pictures in black and white, but readers can see them n

colour in the online newsletter on our website, www.kilmallie.org.uk

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house. The ownership model is quite tricky though, especially when someone rents for a while and then chooses to buy, but we would want them to own their houses. That’s why a big concern for us is making sure that we can produce houses that sit within the market value so that people do feel able to buy. Q If you’re talking about bringing liquefied gas in by ship, there’s going to have to be a storage facility on shore for that. Storing high pressure liquified gas close to a residential estate where 5-600 people live?How will the storage and pipeline be accommodated around existing housing developments? A (AN) That’s the purpose of the engineering study, to see whether it is possible. If a proposal does come forward it will be in the public domain to debate, and gather views and make sure it meets Health & Safety Executive requirements. Q If the engineer’s report concludes something is not possible there, then what do you do? A (DM) Can we bring the gas in by a different route? I need to check and get back to you on that. Q With the new hospital and other developments, there’s at least 1000 houses being talked about being built within the next 4-5 years. If we’re jumping from 13 to 200 houses a year, where is the workforce for that going to stay? Where is the infrastructure to allow all these houses to happen? A (TS) Not all the jobs will occur at once, not all the new workforce will need a brand new house. There’ll be existing houses which people can buy or rent, and the hope is to retrain people who live here to take on some of these jobs so it’s not a direct translation of 400 new jobs = 400 new homes. There’ll be a slow pace of expansion. But there are up to about 1000 houses that we could bring forward, 200 at least on the Blar Mor, the Housing Associations have about 400 they could bring forward, and a developer wants to build about 150 houses at Lundavra Road. Q Lochaber Housing Association know how many we want to build, we know the spread of affordable rent, rent to buy, and so on, but if the factory is to be up and running in 3-4 years, it’s a very short time to build those houses - we know there’s the land, we know there’s the will to do it but I don’t think there’s the infrastructure to do it. We know there is already full employment within the building industry in Fort William - we can’t build these houses with the existing workforce - we’ll have to bring the workforce in - where are they going to stay? A (DM) We’re starting to profile how many bednights we’d need at each stage of the evolution. We recognise getting hotel beds in the season is nigh on impossible, so we’re looking at a number of options ranging from temporary accommodation for people to live in while building is taking place - to converting some of the properties on the

estate. We recognise the issues about capacity in the construction industry: the scale of activity is potentially going to require construction companies on a scale that haven’t had to operate here before. So eg at Stronelairg windfarm, Melgarve substation etc there is a massive level of construction activity taking place at the moment – some of the people work on site during the week and go home at weekends, other people travel in and out each day - I don’t think that’s ideal but we need to start asking the construction companies when we’re talking about the spec - where will your people come from and where will they live? They may say ‘don’t worry we’ve got this cracked’ or we may need to offer them a solution – we’re looking at this at the moment. Q We haven’t heard the West Highland line mentioned, but if you’re considering bringing in high volumes, it needs major investment to maintain it for everyone to use. It has been threatened in the past… A (DM) It’s certainly an option. I know that the line is an area of focus at the moment because of the forestry extraction that’s taking place - it’s part of the discussion at the moment. Q The plan to put more heavy vehicles on the A82 is a concern when there hasn’t been any action yet about the existing problems. Now there is yet another study but is there any assurance that something is going to be done? A (AN) Sorry I can’t give you any assurance. It’s a while since there was a serious look at upgrading the town’s infrastructure. It takes a long time to get from initial evidence-gathering and reviews to the road rollers getting out there - but we have to go through that process. Q But meanwhile in 4 years the alloy wheels factory will be increasing the freight traffic on this road that is already far from adequate for basic car drivers... A (DM) - We expect the net increase to be about 7-8 trucks a day. My sense is that the challenge won’t be around heavy vehicles, if anything the challenge will be around peak times with commuter type traffic. Q Over the whole of the summer period...? A (DM) It’s certainly something we need to look at. Q The journey from Corpach to town takes 8 mins, but in summer it can become 60 mins - that’s the kind of disruption we face almost daily. With new houses on the Blar, the place is just going to come to a full stop. We think you’ve really under-estimated how tricky it will be to get around this place. A (AN) The study is drawing on data that’s been captured over the last summer and autumn. Q With 400 jobs that’s approx 1000 people including families and children - that’s about 20 more children a year, another class in every year at the High School, probably the equivalent of 2 new primary schools, plus possibly 800 school runs a day adding to traffic congestion. And we’re going to need

extra medical facilities, and so on - all the extra facilities and infrastructure - has the council even started planning for all the required secondary expansion? A (TS) We don’t have the funding for it but we are reserving the land so eg the Planning Permission in Principle for the Blar, due soon, safeguards a site for a primary school. The Gaelic school was built in such a way that it can be extended. Inverlochy Primary has got room for expansion. The High School has underused land at the back that could be used . We’ve looked ahead to see roughly how many new houses will be built every year and projected the existing Primary and High School rolls, but you’re right there is an issue… the existing schools can’t cope after about year 7 or 8. Q And the extra 700-800 school runs per day? A (TS) I don’t have an easy answer on the transport issue I’m afraid. The AECOM study that will be ready by end of May/ early June will sift options on how the transport network (including rail and active travel) can be improved. And it will recommend further detailed work on one or two options. We are going through the transport appraisal process, gathering as much detail as possible to build a cogent argument to justify asking the government for money. A (AH) It might appear that nothing has been done about the traffic but a lot of work was done last year which has contributed to the current study just finishing. If you travelled within that corridor last year you’ll have had numberplate recognition and your journey time recorded. Transport Scotland aren’t keen to pay for all this - they want the Council to bear the cost. It’s trunk traffic and the times that are lost per journey through the whole area that matters when it comes to getting funding. The whole thing is being modelled to the nth degree, at this moment. The study is what’s termed a pre STAG appraisal, compulsory before we can get to the Strategic Transport Appraisal Guidelines. If we don’t get it to that stage we’ll never get anything done about the road. It’s at a very early stage but it is being fast-tracked I assure you. Highland Council, HITRANS and HIE have put the money together to get this bit done and if Transport Scotland come on board, Highland Council guarantee that they’ll pay 50% of the STAG appraisal (probably about £0.5M). There’s a lot of work to be done unfortunately. Q There’s an awful lot of detail planning to be done by Liberty, rightly so commercially driven. But the project’s happening really quickly. The work required by the rest of the public agencies may be happening but are we going to see it in time? Are we going to get a chance to see those plans, STAG appraisals and the rest of it? We live in an area that had temporary traffic lights on the A82 for 35 years. Is enough progress being made fast enough for the dramatic amount of work that needs to be addressed?

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We have had a VERY eventful term here at Banavie.

From salmon releases to residentials, it was a full on

term!

We have had salmon eggs in our classroom for a few

weeks and on the 11th May went to the river Lochy to

release the newly born fish. We got to witness Electro-

fishing (a way of sending an electric current through the

water. This doesn’t hurt the fish but does make it easy to

count them) and got to identify several fish and water

life. We found salmon, trout and a stickleback. We are

very happy that we have got to help the fish.

Also this term was the P6 buddies. The primary 6s got

paired up with a nursery pupil each and will help them

and play with them through the transition from nursery

to P1.

Fun Night! The primary 7s got to organise their own

stalls which included: slime, sand art, nail painting and

tattoos, punching balloons and many more! Fun night

was a big success!

One of the many highlights of our term here at Banavie

was the primary 7 residential! All of the P7s went to

the Shieling Project, Struy near Beauly. We got to stay

in new modern bothies in groups of up to 6, feed the

animals, make our own food and wash up our own

plates, go in a hike, enjoy the blazing sunshine in our

free time, learn about the history of the Shieling and

much, much more! We had amazing weather and all of

the staff were very helpful and happy.

The Shieling Project was all about being sustainable. We

grew vegetables, managed our waste, used solar panels

for light in some places and even managed our water by

using a composting toilet. This meant that we saved

water as well as made compost for the veggies!

Primary 7 also walked to the High School to take part

in a transition day. The Fifth Years showed us around

the school and we got to meet some of the teachers. In

one of the classrooms there was even a Bearded Dragon

called Spyro!

The whole school are even going on two school trips this

term! One to the Mountain Bike World Cup and the

other to Landmark! The school is looking forward to

going.

We have also been doing a lot of work in our Eco

Garden. We have planted trees and vegetables and hope

that they will grow well. We are trying to make the Eco

Garden into a place that the nursery children can play

safely and happily.

Along the side of the school we have made mini habitats

in containers. We have made:

- an Alpine Garden

- a Butterfly Garden

- a Bee Garden

- a Woodland Garden.

We hope that these will attract

wildlife and also teach people about

how different plants grow in

different places and help different

minibeasts and species of animal .

By Megan Pescod, Anna Gray and Jackson Lee

Banavie Primary 7

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Q I believe Highland Council have been working on a 2040 masterplan vision that will be drawn up quite soon. It would help answer a lot of the questions that people have here if we’d had sight of that? The public needs to inform the masterplan as well as having a right to see what is being planned. If we’d had the opportunity to be consulted, some of these questions would already be included in the plan. A (TS) You will see it – but it’s not going to provide every answer. If Liberty’s job expansion happens, then yes you’re right, as most people in the room have raised, issues of schools, housing, roads etc need a longer term vision of how we cope with all these things. Highland Council together with a lot of other agencies and government are working on basically a large map which sums up what Fort William will need if all these jobs and growth happens. It sums up all the major ideas, but it is only ideas: the next job will be to secure the funding from all the agencies. and to co-ordinate the funding to ensure we do get investment in ports, houses and roads. Highland Council’s Area Committee will be considering a draft on 11th April and it will go public 3 days before. There will be a commitment to consultation on it during the summer. So there is a vision. You will see it. We will consult on it. But I don’t want to raise any false hopes - there is a huge amount of funding that is needed to go with it. Q Why are you not training more local people up to take these jobs? A (DM) We take a serious approach to apprentices and bringing people through. We are heavily involved in the industrial cadetship programme elsewhere in the UK - we’ll continue to do that - we’ve got a foundation which promotes apprentices. It will take time to get to that point, it will be part of the solution but it won’t take us all the way. Q So what plans do you have to train people in this area? A (DM) There is a recruitment group that is looking into it at the moment. There will be a proportion of the workforce that will be able to be recruited locally and we will be aiming to do that. We want to be able to create opportunities for people locally. A (SMF) West Highland College are working with Liberty to look at the recruitment needs so we‘re able to start building a local skills pipeline to keep the jobs local instead of having to import some of the skills in. It’s a long term partnership. We’re hoping to establish our STEM Centre for science, technology, engineering and maths on the Blar. We certainly hope we can work with Liberty to ensure a solution. Q Can you clarify if HIE is funding the port study and what the commercial interest is? There are rumours about links with Fergusons facilities at Kishorn. How is the public interest to be safeguarded? A (AN) The port study is being led by Boyd’s with support from HIE and some support from Liberty. We’re looking to explore development of a deep water port

for raw materials, essentially alumina and gas brought in to supply the smelter in a much more efficient fashion than currently, with also potential for further developments for either inbound materials or outbound freight. The study is to establish the engineering feasibility and an indication of cost. When the study is complete it can be discussed more widely, and if the idea is feasible, there will be a full masterplanning exercise for the whole port area. Q We need a harbour authority for this area so it is under public/community control, not controlled by private interest. Will HIE and Highland Council jointly think about that? A (AN) I will take have to that away and discuss it. Q There is a need for a genuine consultation on all the issues raised here. A noise assessment was carried out before extension of the jetty in 2002 based on 2 vessels a month whereas there’s now 2-3 a day. We’re experiencing serious disturbance with noise levels of over 112 dB, 20db and more above background noise levels. We’ve raised complaints repeatedly with Environmental Health and Planning. The company is operating regularly outwith permitted hours, up to midnight and through the night. There were 12 objections on the first draft local development plan on that issue. Yet the current draft shows LNG development on the island and further industrial development. Making wheels on site from the molten aluminium is a superb idea and makes absolute sense, but we need to make sure that the existing problems such as A82 congestion and the serious pollution issues are dealt with before there is any further development considered. This is the year of Community Empowerment. I fully support the idea for a Harbour Order. It would be inconceivable that operations at Mallaig would be down to the commercial whims of various operators. It is managed not only on behalf of the people who use the harbour but also the wider community. We seriously need to address the current problems and need a major consultation about these future commercial proposals A (TS) There are objections pending to the industrial allocation in the draft WHILDP which will be reported to the Area Committee on 11th April. The committee could make changes to it at that point but even if they don’t it is a government-appointed person who looks at all the objections, so there will be a hearing by someone other than the Council. Q Considering Liberty’s commitment to the development, and GFG’s planning in the early stages, surely you had a plan A for gas storage and transportation? Why are you looking at options now? A (DM) It’s a question for the factory. I don’t want to say something that is technically incorrect. I’d like to take that one away and come back to you with an answer. ***** Q 400 extra houses in 4 years time - we all love living here but it’s going to be a bit of a

challenge. How will you source 400 extra professionals? A (DM) Sue touched on it in terms of training. Fergus Ewing chairs the Lochaber Delivery Group - underneath that there are a series of groups set up to enable us to work with public sector bodies: one of these groups is looking specifically at recruitment and training. A (AN) HIE, Highland Council, Skills Development Scotland, and Lochaber Chamber of Commerce are also in that group so we’ll be looking to raise the profile of the area generally as a fantastic place to live, work and study. Q Caol Regeneration Company have recently been granted £1m funding for the Corpach Marina. If the port is to be expanded we’re looking at a big industrial development right beside the marina. Will the port study take that into account? A (AN) I don’t think so at this stage - it’s just looking at the engineering, but it certainly will in the ‘planning in the round’ in the next phase. Q What plans do you have for community consultation about any of your proposals? A (DM) We have to go through the planning process for everything we’re doing and that includes a process for community consultation, driven by Highland Council. I’m very happy to come along to things like this to hear what people’s concerns are and respond to them as best we can. A (AN) I do get the sense that people would like to know a lot more about what’s actually going on. An awful lot’s happened very quickly and there’s lots of work strands ongoing. I think that a requirement for a steady stream of information in the public domain in an organised fashion would be helpful and that’s something that HIE and Highland Council can work to provide over the summer and for the rest of the year. A (TS) As I said we will consult on the 2040 vision over the summer, the Blar Mor masterplan will be consulted on over the summer: any big planning application we will consult on. Q Do you have any plans for a Community Liaison Forum. If so, when do you intend to establish it and how often will it meet? A (DM) I’m perfectly happy to come along and speak to Community Councils and other existing groups as I do in the evenings. My sense is we should work with structures that exist rather than reinvent the wheel - that’s certainly how I would approach it.

Big Bang A few weeks ago we hosted a successful ‘Big Bang’ STEM event. S2 were learning about some of our local employers and attempting a range of different STEM activities that had been set. All of the companies did a great job working with our pupils and explaining the type of challenges that they come across on a daily basis. We would like to thank all of those that contributed to the event. Photos overpage.

Liberty Aluminium set an engineering challenge during the event Those that completed it successfully were entered into a draw to win an iPad. The lucky winner, Kai Menzies, was handed this fantastic prize by Tom Uppington (Power Operations Director at Liberty Aluminium).

Shinty

S1/2 pupils from Lochaber High School attended a shinty festival in Plockton on at the end of May. This was a friendly tournament for both girls and boys to get experience playing in a competitive environment. Our pupils played remarkably well in very hot conditions. Big thank you to Aiden Love who stepped in last minute to help us out, and to Miss Boa and Mrs Meldrum. S1-6 girls shinty is on every Thursday after school - all abilities welcome and equipment is provided.

introducing Lochaber High’s new head...

It was Wednesday 21 February 2018, a day that I will never forget, because this was my first day as Head Teacher of Lochaber High School. This was the destination to a journey I began some time ago.

I started my educational career in East Renfrewshire as an English Teacher at Eastwood High School before moving over the hill to Mearns Castle High School not long thereafter. My first promoted post was Principal Teacher of

English at Barrhead High School n the same authority. At Barrhead, a town where you do not need to look far to encounter significant social and economic challenges, no young person left us without a raft of qualifications, albeit at a basic level sometimes, and a skill set to prepare them for life. This was achieved because we worked together effectively in teams on agreed goals.

Once again my passion for education took me to Berwickshire High School set in the small rural town of Duns, the home of the famous racing driver Jim Clark. Although the town was small, the high school takes in young people from across the authority as well as across the border from England. As Depute Head Teacher I really understood the relationship between well-resourced national educational policies, and their potential impact on young people and communities. However, with my interests in hillwalking and cycling, I was forever leaving the Borders at the weekend and driving west, and west is where my heart lies.

It was n one such trip that I discovered the impressive building of Lochaber High School. It was the day that a friend and I decided to go to the Caledonian Canal to cycle after the previous day’s long walk in the Mamores. I can remember saying to him that I would love the opportunity to serve and work in such a wonderful setting, and I never thought much more about it until I saw the post of Head Teacher advertised.

I was really humbled by the welcome and support I received from the previous Head Teacher Jim Sutherland and his wife Gill. Jim spent a number of days and evenings explaining to my wife, Val and I how much the school had moved forward to where it is today.

My wife and I have recently moved into our new house and we are settling in well. Val will continue her work in the hospitality and tourism industry while pursuing her interest in traditional upholstery. In fact she is busy preparing and converting our garage which will soon serve as her workshop. Both of us are looking forward to establishing ourselves and becoming active n the community.

Scott Steele

***** Duncan gave KCC his answer the following day as to whether the alloy wheels factory requires a gas supply brought by sea: (DM) No, gas by sea is not required for the factory to open. We will have our own gas terminal on site that is fed by road tanker for all site needs. If however a local network was built we would be keen to use that instead.

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Highland Council’s 2040 Vision

Local Authorities have a statutory obligation to prepare strategic and local development plans for their area, and to follow strict procedures for consultation during their drafting and adoption process, to try and ensure planning decisions are made on the basis of a shared vision for an area.

We are covered by the West Highlands and Island Local Development Plan (WHILDP or West Plan) .

The current draft has been through a long process of consultation and revision. Highland Council have submitted it to the government’s appointed ‘Recorder’ for ‘Examination’, a required part of the process that is likely to take 6-9 months. The Recorder will consider any outstanding unresolved objections.

The Council have also recently published what, to the layman, feels like a revised plan - their vision for 2040, see above. Its status in relation to the West Plan seems a little equivocal.

The vision is not going to be subject to the same consultation process as the West Plan. Details have not yet been confirmed but we believe it will have a 1 day drop-in opportunity to respond to what is already in print. Date and venue as yet unknown (we understand it will be this summer, with possibly short notice at a time when many of us might be away or occupied with tourism businesses). Our local Highland councillors hope to be able to approve the vision at their next Area Committee meeting on 30 August.

A vision for the Fort William area for the next 20 years should perhaps start by asking its communities what our aspirations are, what qualities of place do we want to preserve or create. Ideally it should be responsive to concerns raised about the draft West Plan.

Should a vision be primarily a reactive response to help meet the objectives of a global company and other commercial interests? The pace of

Liberty’s activities undoubtedly requires rapid action from Highland Council to manage and mitigate the impact on us all for our collective benefit, but establishing a 20 year vision without first fully exploring the aspirations of the people most affected seems perhaps unfitting.

There are a number of things implied in the vision above that KCC knows are already causing concern within our community.

Keep an eye out for the brief consultation on this important vision. It often feels like community concerns are never taken account of, but if you don’t register your concerns at all then they will definitely be ignored.

Is 2040 to be a vision of Community Disempowerment?

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Highland Council’s 2040 Vision

Local Authorities have a statutory obligation to prepare strategic and local development plans for their area, and to follow strict procedures for consultation during their drafting and adoption process, to try and ensure planning decisions are made on the basis of a shared vision for an area.

We are covered by the West Highlands and Island Local Development Plan (WHILDP or West Plan) .

The current draft has been through a long process of consultation and revision. Highland Council have submitted it to the government’s appointed ‘Recorder’ for ‘Examination’, a required part of the process that is likely to take 6-9 months. The Recorder will consider any outstanding unresolved objections.

The Council have also recently published what, to the layman, feels like a revised plan - their vision for 2040, see above. Its status in relation to the West Plan seems a little equivocal.

The vision is not going to be subject to the same consultation process as the West Plan. Details have not yet been confirmed but we believe it will have a 1 day drop-in opportunity to respond to what is already in print. Date and venue as yet unknown (we understand it will be this summer, with possibly short notice at a time when many of us might be away or occupied with tourism businesses). Our local Highland councillors hope to be able to approve the vision at their next Area Committee meeting on 30 August.

A vision for the Fort William area for the next 20 years should perhaps start by asking its communities what our aspirations are, what qualities of place do we want to preserve or create. Ideally it should be responsive to concerns raised about the draft West Plan.

Should a vision be primarily a reactive response to help meet the objectives of a global company and other commercial interests? The pace of

Liberty’s activities undoubtedly requires rapid action from Highland Council to manage and mitigate the impact on us all for our collective benefit, but establishing a 20 year vision without first fully exploring the aspirations of the people most affected seems perhaps unfitting.

There are a number of things implied in the vision above that KCC knows are already causing concern within our community.

Keep an eye out for the brief consultation on this important vision. It often feels like community concerns are never taken account of, but if you don’t register your concerns at all then they will definitely be ignored.

Is 2040 to be a vision of Community Disempowerment?

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Q I believe Highland Council have been working on a 2040 masterplan vision that will be drawn up quite soon. It would help answer a lot of the questions that people have here if we’d had sight of that? The public needs to inform the masterplan as well as having a right to see what is being planned. If we’d had the opportunity to be consulted, some of these questions would already be included in the plan. A (TS) You will see it – but it’s not going to provide every answer. If Liberty’s job expansion happens, then yes you’re right, as most people in the room have raised, issues of schools, housing, roads etc need a longer term vision of how we cope with all these things. Highland Council together with a lot of other agencies and government are working on basically a large map which sums up what Fort William will need if all these jobs and growth happens. It sums up all the major ideas, but it is only ideas: the next job will be to secure the funding from all the agencies. and to co-ordinate the funding to ensure we do get investment in ports, houses and roads. Highland Council’s Area Committee will be considering a draft on 11th April and it will go public 3 days before. There will be a commitment to consultation on it during the summer. So there is a vision. You will see it. We will consult on it. But I don’t want to raise any false hopes - there is a huge amount of funding that is needed to go with it. Q Why are you not training more local people up to take these jobs? A (DM) We take a serious approach to apprentices and bringing people through. We are heavily involved in the industrial cadetship programme elsewhere in the UK - we’ll continue to do that - we’ve got a foundation which promotes apprentices. It will take time to get to that point, it will be part of the solution but it won’t take us all the way. Q So what plans do you have to train people in this area? A (DM) There is a recruitment group that is looking into it at the moment. There will be a proportion of the workforce that will be able to be recruited locally and we will be aiming to do that. We want to be able to create opportunities for people locally. A (SMF) West Highland College are working with Liberty to look at the recruitment needs so we‘re able to start building a local skills pipeline to keep the jobs local instead of having to import some of the skills in. It’s a long term partnership. We’re hoping to establish our STEM Centre for science, technology, engineering and maths on the Blar. We certainly hope we can work with Liberty to ensure a solution. Q Can you clarify if HIE is funding the port study and what the commercial interest is? There are rumours about links with Fergusons facilities at Kishorn. How is the public interest to be safeguarded? A (AN) The port study is being led by Boyd’s with support from HIE and some support from Liberty. We’re looking to explore development of a deep water port

for raw materials, essentially alumina and gas brought in to supply the smelter in a much more efficient fashion than currently, with also potential for further developments for either inbound materials or outbound freight. The study is to establish the engineering feasibility and an indication of cost. When the study is complete it can be discussed more widely, and if the idea is feasible, there will be a full masterplanning exercise for the whole port area. Q We need a harbour authority for this area so it is under public/community control, not controlled by private interest. Will HIE and Highland Council jointly think about that? A (AN) I will take have to that away and discuss it. Q There is a need for a genuine consultation on all the issues raised here. A noise assessment was carried out before extension of the jetty in 2002 based on 2 vessels a month whereas there’s now 2-3 a day. We’re experiencing serious disturbance with noise levels of over 112 dB, 20db and more above background noise levels. We’ve raised complaints repeatedly with Environmental Health and Planning. The company is operating regularly outwith permitted hours, up to midnight and through the night. There were 12 objections on the first draft local development plan on that issue. Yet the current draft shows LNG development on the island and further industrial development. Making wheels on site from the molten aluminium is a superb idea and makes absolute sense, but we need to make sure that the existing problems such as A82 congestion and the serious pollution issues are dealt with before there is any further development considered. This is the year of Community Empowerment. I fully support the idea for a Harbour Order. It would be inconceivable that operations at Mallaig would be down to the commercial whims of various operators. It is managed not only on behalf of the people who use the harbour but also the wider community. We seriously need to address the current problems and need a major consultation about these future commercial proposals A (TS) There are objections pending to the industrial allocation in the draft WHILDP which will be reported to the Area Committee on 11th April. The committee could make changes to it at that point but even if they don’t it is a government-appointed person who looks at all the objections, so there will be a hearing by someone other than the Council. Q Considering Liberty’s commitment to the development, and GFG’s planning in the early stages, surely you had a plan A for gas storage and transportation? Why are you looking at options now? A (DM) It’s a question for the factory. I don’t want to say something that is technically incorrect. I’d like to take that one away and come back to you with an answer. ***** Q 400 extra houses in 4 years time - we all love living here but it’s going to be a bit of a

challenge. How will you source 400 extra professionals? A (DM) Sue touched on it in terms of training. Fergus Ewing chairs the Lochaber Delivery Group - underneath that there are a series of groups set up to enable us to work with public sector bodies: one of these groups is looking specifically at recruitment and training. A (AN) HIE, Highland Council, Skills Development Scotland, and Lochaber Chamber of Commerce are also in that group so we’ll be looking to raise the profile of the area generally as a fantastic place to live, work and study. Q Caol Regeneration Company have recently been granted £1m funding for the Corpach Marina. If the port is to be expanded we’re looking at a big industrial development right beside the marina. Will the port study take that into account? A (AN) I don’t think so at this stage - it’s just looking at the engineering, but it certainly will in the ‘planning in the round’ in the next phase. Q What plans do you have for community consultation about any of your proposals? A (DM) We have to go through the planning process for everything we’re doing and that includes a process for community consultation, driven by Highland Council. I’m very happy to come along to things like this to hear what people’s concerns are and respond to them as best we can. A (AN) I do get the sense that people would like to know a lot more about what’s actually going on. An awful lot’s happened very quickly and there’s lots of work strands ongoing. I think that a requirement for a steady stream of information in the public domain in an organised fashion would be helpful and that’s something that HIE and Highland Council can work to provide over the summer and for the rest of the year. A (TS) As I said we will consult on the 2040 vision over the summer, the Blar Mor masterplan will be consulted on over the summer: any big planning application we will consult on. Q Do you have any plans for a Community Liaison Forum. If so, when do you intend to establish it and how often will it meet? A (DM) I’m perfectly happy to come along and speak to Community Councils and other existing groups as I do in the evenings. My sense is we should work with structures that exist rather than reinvent the wheel - that’s certainly how I would approach it.

Big Bang A few weeks ago we hosted a successful ‘Big Bang’ STEM event. S2 were learning about some of our local employers and attempting a range of different STEM activities that had been set. All of the companies did a great job working with our pupils and explaining the type of challenges that they come across on a daily basis. We would like to thank all of those that contributed to the event. Photos overpage.

Liberty Aluminium set an engineering challenge during the event Those that completed it successfully were entered into a draw to win an iPad. The lucky winner, Kai Menzies, was handed this fantastic prize by Tom Uppington (Power Operations Director at Liberty Aluminium).

Shinty

S1/2 pupils from Lochaber High School attended a shinty festival in Plockton on at the end of May. This was a friendly tournament for both girls and boys to get experience playing in a competitive environment. Our pupils played remarkably well in very hot conditions. Big thank you to Aiden Love who stepped in last minute to help us out, and to Miss Boa and Mrs Meldrum. S1-6 girls shinty is on every Thursday after school - all abilities welcome and equipment is provided.

introducing Lochaber High’s new head...

It was Wednesday 21 February 2018, a day that I will never forget, because this was my first day as Head Teacher of Lochaber High School. This was the destination to a journey I began some time ago.

I started my educational career in East Renfrewshire as an English Teacher at Eastwood High School before moving over the hill to Mearns Castle High School not long thereafter. My first promoted post was Principal Teacher of

English at Barrhead High School n the same authority. At Barrhead, a town where you do not need to look far to encounter significant social and economic challenges, no young person left us without a raft of qualifications, albeit at a basic level sometimes, and a skill set to prepare them for life. This was achieved because we worked together effectively in teams on agreed goals.

Once again my passion for education took me to Berwickshire High School set in the small rural town of Duns, the home of the famous racing driver Jim Clark. Although the town was small, the high school takes in young people from across the authority as well as across the border from England. As Depute Head Teacher I really understood the relationship between well-resourced national educational policies, and their potential impact on young people and communities. However, with my interests in hillwalking and cycling, I was forever leaving the Borders at the weekend and driving west, and west is where my heart lies.

It was n one such trip that I discovered the impressive building of Lochaber High School. It was the day that a friend and I decided to go to the Caledonian Canal to cycle after the previous day’s long walk in the Mamores. I can remember saying to him that I would love the opportunity to serve and work in such a wonderful setting, and I never thought much more about it until I saw the post of Head Teacher advertised.

I was really humbled by the welcome and support I received from the previous Head Teacher Jim Sutherland and his wife Gill. Jim spent a number of days and evenings explaining to my wife, Val and I how much the school had moved forward to where it is today.

My wife and I have recently moved into our new house and we are settling in well. Val will continue her work in the hospitality and tourism industry while pursuing her interest in traditional upholstery. In fact she is busy preparing and converting our garage which will soon serve as her workshop. Both of us are looking forward to establishing ourselves and becoming active n the community.

Scott Steele

***** Duncan gave KCC his answer the following day as to whether the alloy wheels factory requires a gas supply brought by sea: (DM) No, gas by sea is not required for the factory to open. We will have our own gas terminal on site that is fed by road tanker for all site needs. If however a local network was built we would be keen to use that instead.

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house. The ownership model is quite tricky though, especially when someone rents for a while and then chooses to buy, but we would want them to own their houses. That’s why a big concern for us is making sure that we can produce houses that sit within the market value so that people do feel able to buy. Q If you’re talking about bringing liquefied gas in by ship, there’s going to have to be a storage facility on shore for that. Storing high pressure liquified gas close to a residential estate where 5-600 people live?How will the storage and pipeline be accommodated around existing housing developments? A (AN) That’s the purpose of the engineering study, to see whether it is possible. If a proposal does come forward it will be in the public domain to debate, and gather views and make sure it meets Health & Safety Executive requirements. Q If the engineer’s report concludes something is not possible there, then what do you do? A (DM) Can we bring the gas in by a different route? I need to check and get back to you on that. Q With the new hospital and other developments, there’s at least 1000 houses being talked about being built within the next 4-5 years. If we’re jumping from 13 to 200 houses a year, where is the workforce for that going to stay? Where is the infrastructure to allow all these houses to happen? A (TS) Not all the jobs will occur at once, not all the new workforce will need a brand new house. There’ll be existing houses which people can buy or rent, and the hope is to retrain people who live here to take on some of these jobs so it’s not a direct translation of 400 new jobs = 400 new homes. There’ll be a slow pace of expansion. But there are up to about 1000 houses that we could bring forward, 200 at least on the Blar Mor, the Housing Associations have about 400 they could bring forward, and a developer wants to build about 150 houses at Lundavra Road. Q Lochaber Housing Association know how many we want to build, we know the spread of affordable rent, rent to buy, and so on, but if the factory is to be up and running in 3-4 years, it’s a very short time to build those houses - we know there’s the land, we know there’s the will to do it but I don’t think there’s the infrastructure to do it. We know there is already full employment within the building industry in Fort William - we can’t build these houses with the existing workforce - we’ll have to bring the workforce in - where are they going to stay? A (DM) We’re starting to profile how many bednights we’d need at each stage of the evolution. We recognise getting hotel beds in the season is nigh on impossible, so we’re looking at a number of options ranging from temporary accommodation for people to live in while building is taking place - to converting some of the properties on the

estate. We recognise the issues about capacity in the construction industry: the scale of activity is potentially going to require construction companies on a scale that haven’t had to operate here before. So eg at Stronelairg windfarm, Melgarve substation etc there is a massive level of construction activity taking place at the moment – some of the people work on site during the week and go home at weekends, other people travel in and out each day - I don’t think that’s ideal but we need to start asking the construction companies when we’re talking about the spec - where will your people come from and where will they live? They may say ‘don’t worry we’ve got this cracked’ or we may need to offer them a solution – we’re looking at this at the moment. Q We haven’t heard the West Highland line mentioned, but if you’re considering bringing in high volumes, it needs major investment to maintain it for everyone to use. It has been threatened in the past… A (DM) It’s certainly an option. I know that the line is an area of focus at the moment because of the forestry extraction that’s taking place - it’s part of the discussion at the moment. Q The plan to put more heavy vehicles on the A82 is a concern when there hasn’t been any action yet about the existing problems. Now there is yet another study but is there any assurance that something is going to be done? A (AN) Sorry I can’t give you any assurance. It’s a while since there was a serious look at upgrading the town’s infrastructure. It takes a long time to get from initial evidence-gathering and reviews to the road rollers getting out there - but we have to go through that process. Q But meanwhile in 4 years the alloy wheels factory will be increasing the freight traffic on this road that is already far from adequate for basic car drivers... A (DM) - We expect the net increase to be about 7-8 trucks a day. My sense is that the challenge won’t be around heavy vehicles, if anything the challenge will be around peak times with commuter type traffic. Q Over the whole of the summer period...? A (DM) It’s certainly something we need to look at. Q The journey from Corpach to town takes 8 mins, but in summer it can become 60 mins - that’s the kind of disruption we face almost daily. With new houses on the Blar, the place is just going to come to a full stop. We think you’ve really under-estimated how tricky it will be to get around this place. A (AN) The study is drawing on data that’s been captured over the last summer and autumn. Q With 400 jobs that’s approx 1000 people including families and children - that’s about 20 more children a year, another class in every year at the High School, probably the equivalent of 2 new primary schools, plus possibly 800 school runs a day adding to traffic congestion. And we’re going to need

extra medical facilities, and so on - all the extra facilities and infrastructure - has the council even started planning for all the required secondary expansion? A (TS) We don’t have the funding for it but we are reserving the land so eg the Planning Permission in Principle for the Blar, due soon, safeguards a site for a primary school. The Gaelic school was built in such a way that it can be extended. Inverlochy Primary has got room for expansion. The High School has underused land at the back that could be used . We’ve looked ahead to see roughly how many new houses will be built every year and projected the existing Primary and High School rolls, but you’re right there is an issue… the existing schools can’t cope after about year 7 or 8. Q And the extra 700-800 school runs per day? A (TS) I don’t have an easy answer on the transport issue I’m afraid. The AECOM study that will be ready by end of May/ early June will sift options on how the transport network (including rail and active travel) can be improved. And it will recommend further detailed work on one or two options. We are going through the transport appraisal process, gathering as much detail as possible to build a cogent argument to justify asking the government for money. A (AH) It might appear that nothing has been done about the traffic but a lot of work was done last year which has contributed to the current study just finishing. If you travelled within that corridor last year you’ll have had numberplate recognition and your journey time recorded. Transport Scotland aren’t keen to pay for all this - they want the Council to bear the cost. It’s trunk traffic and the times that are lost per journey through the whole area that matters when it comes to getting funding. The whole thing is being modelled to the nth degree, at this moment. The study is what’s termed a pre STAG appraisal, compulsory before we can get to the Strategic Transport Appraisal Guidelines. If we don’t get it to that stage we’ll never get anything done about the road. It’s at a very early stage but it is being fast-tracked I assure you. Highland Council, HITRANS and HIE have put the money together to get this bit done and if Transport Scotland come on board, Highland Council guarantee that they’ll pay 50% of the STAG appraisal (probably about £0.5M). There’s a lot of work to be done unfortunately. Q There’s an awful lot of detail planning to be done by Liberty, rightly so commercially driven. But the project’s happening really quickly. The work required by the rest of the public agencies may be happening but are we going to see it in time? Are we going to get a chance to see those plans, STAG appraisals and the rest of it? We live in an area that had temporary traffic lights on the A82 for 35 years. Is enough progress being made fast enough for the dramatic amount of work that needs to be addressed?

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We have had a VERY eventful term here at Banavie.

From salmon releases to residentials, it was a full on

term!

We have had salmon eggs in our classroom for a few

weeks and on the 11th May went to the river Lochy to

release the newly born fish. We got to witness Electro-

fishing (a way of sending an electric current through the

water. This doesn’t hurt the fish but does make it easy to

count them) and got to identify several fish and water

life. We found salmon, trout and a stickleback. We are

very happy that we have got to help the fish.

Also this term was the P6 buddies. The primary 6s got

paired up with a nursery pupil each and will help them

and play with them through the transition from nursery

to P1.

Fun Night! The primary 7s got to organise their own

stalls which included: slime, sand art, nail painting and

tattoos, punching balloons and many more! Fun night

was a big success!

One of the many highlights of our term here at Banavie

was the primary 7 residential! All of the P7s went to

the Shieling Project, Struy near Beauly. We got to stay

in new modern bothies in groups of up to 6, feed the

animals, make our own food and wash up our own

plates, go in a hike, enjoy the blazing sunshine in our

free time, learn about the history of the Shieling and

much, much more! We had amazing weather and all of

the staff were very helpful and happy.

The Shieling Project was all about being sustainable. We

grew vegetables, managed our waste, used solar panels

for light in some places and even managed our water by

using a composting toilet. This meant that we saved

water as well as made compost for the veggies!

Primary 7 also walked to the High School to take part

in a transition day. The Fifth Years showed us around

the school and we got to meet some of the teachers. In

one of the classrooms there was even a Bearded Dragon

called Spyro!

The whole school are even going on two school trips this

term! One to the Mountain Bike World Cup and the

other to Landmark! The school is looking forward to

going.

We have also been doing a lot of work in our Eco

Garden. We have planted trees and vegetables and hope

that they will grow well. We are trying to make the Eco

Garden into a place that the nursery children can play

safely and happily.

Along the side of the school we have made mini habitats

in containers. We have made:

- an Alpine Garden

- a Butterfly Garden

- a Bee Garden

- a Woodland Garden.

We hope that these will attract

wildlife and also teach people about

how different plants grow in

different places and help different

minibeasts and species of animal .

By Megan Pescod, Anna Gray and Jackson Lee

Banavie Primary 7

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• have to have stalking to manage the deer population, also looking at other sporting developments

• some farming, fairly limited, tends to be just sheep on inbye land: don’t have any other farming aspirations

• a significant amount of forestry: potentially looking at it as source of fuel for biomass projects but will have to sit within a broader planting plan, likely to take place out towards Glenshero.

Questions and Answers Q Is it your intention to bring raw materials in, and product out, by sea, road, or rail? To what extent do you plan to use the existing transport hub facilities at Corpach? Will there be a need to create new facilities and what would be the implications for Kilmallie? A (DM) At the moment the plan is that materials would continue to be brought in by rail and that that product would leave by road. If the port is developed and became an option in the future then we might take advantage of that but at the moment we’re not planning on using it. The one exception to that is that the wheels factory will require gas so there is potentially a requirement to bring in LNG (liquified natural gas) by sea - that’s not the only route it could come in by but that would be something that we might need to look at. We’ve discussed that to a certain extent with Highland Council and I know HIE are looking at that more broadly. A (AN) An engineering study has been commissioned to see if a deepwater facility could be developed with the capability to handle inbound raw material. Once that’s complete if it looks feasible then there’ll be a full masterplanning exercise of the whole Corpach industrial area which would involve much wider consultation. Q if gas is brought in by sea,. how would it be transported from Corpach to the alloy wheels factory? A (DM) Different options are being looked at the moment. A (AN) A number of other pieces of work are going on in the background at the moment: Scotia Gas will be carrying out a gas demand study in the next few weeks. From the public sector perspective we thought could we develop a gas network for other local businesses and households, so we’re looking to see if a gas grid could be feasible. Initially gas could be tankered from port to site and in the longer term possibly develop a pipe network. Q So the gas that the factory would use is the same gas that people would use in their homes for cooking and heating? A (AN) Yes Q Given that for some years we’ve been dealing with public complaints about noise disturbance from Corpach Harbour area, what assurance can you give that activities from development at the port would not increase the noise? A (AN) Any viable development on the site will have to comply with all planning and

environmental health regulations to get planning consent. A (TS) The developer would have to employ a consultant to produce a report to be lodged with any planning proposal. I know that there are noise issues there now and Highland Council are beginning to take action against various parties there. Q There was a Noise Assessment Study undertaken for BSW but nevertheless noise nuisance is still causing a lot of concern. A (TS) If the noise assessment report states a max permitted noise level and if you can prove that they haven’t met that, then you can take action against them at that point. Q That only works if the permitted noise level isn’t actually causing a nuisance. In the case of BSW they probably are complying with their consent but we’re still hearing a lot of complaints. A (TS) If you think the max permitted noise level has been set too high then you would have a fresh chance to ask the council to reduce it. Q We noted a change between the first and second drafts of the Local Plan - it now shows industrial development on Eilean nan Craobh. Is that because of a proposal that Liberty has? And are there any plans that Liberty have that would conflict with the second draft of the Plan? A (DM) Liberty didn’t ask for that change. Q Would the additional housing that you need be tied to employment? A (DM) I don’t know who’s going to provide it yet but we’re looking at lots of different options. We’re coming up with a specification and a volume for the houses, then looking at a location and then we’ll look for a potential partner. It’s likely that the model we follow is one where we are prescriptive about the designs: we’ll control it as opposed to the developer. We need to provide houses for the people who work at the factory. Tim can talk about the Council’s parallel exercise to produce houses for the broader population but it is likely that the two things could be mixed on the same site and there’s potentially a benefit of doing so. A (TS) The Council’s going to be lodging a Permission in Principle planning application soon for the north side of Blar Mor. We’ll undertake community consultation in June before we launch the application. Planning permission is already in place for non-food retail development there. Highland Council bought Miller Development’s land holding there and this new application is going to look at the new Belford, a science and technology centre and housing, probably a first phase of about 80 or 90 houses and a second phase after that, so probably 200 houses on the Blar Mor. With all these new jobs there’s a queue of landowners and affordable housing agencies with sites that have lain dormant for years. The total number of houses built in the urban area is 13 a year so rates of house building have been very low. We’ve had land earmarked for housing for an awful long time: it’s just sat there, often because of the peat. It

needs somebody to pump-prime the site to get the peat off and put the access road in. It takes major investment to do that but if there are all these extra jobs and government funding as well now, then this is an opportunity to open up all these sites. A peat survey has been done in the last few weeks: there are issues about where the peat is going to be moved to, but the Blar is one of the major housing sites that you will see proposals for soon. Q Presumably the Highland Council houses that are built won’t be for Liberty’s employees but for people on the housing list? A (TS) It will be up to the housing agencies to open up a site but most of the big sites will be a mixture of private housing and affordable housing. It needs the public purse to open up the site, put in the road, put in the sewers, and take out the peat, and then it becomes a viable option for a private house builder. We haven’t seen a lot of private house builder interest in the town at all but you might see that change if all these jobs happen very soon... we’ve already had some private house builders taking an interest. Q Given that the current road network and particularly the A82 is operating at full capacity, what plans does Liberty have for supporting public transport to avoid any increase in congestion? A (DM) I don’t think we’ve got any plans to support public transport at the moment We’d like to locate houses where there’s a sustainable transport option for people to commute to work, trying to take commuter traffic off the road and give people the opportunity to come in through a different route. We are obviously aware of the pressure on the A82 and what that’s like in the summer so choosing sites somewhere that won’t add to that problem makes sense. A (AN) HIE are working with HITRANS and Highland Council and have commissioned a transport study with an extensive evidence gathering exercise which has been ongoing over the past 4-6 weeks to understand the issues and challenges of the transport network. That will produce a long list of potential solutions some of which will be sustainable transport solutions, some will be different forms of public transport, and some will include proposed changes to the road network itself. We’re working through that process just now and the output should be in the public domain in the summer. I’m acutely conscious that a development of this scale changes the town, and its infrastructure needs to expand to accommodate it. Q Will the houses you build for employees be ‘tied houses’ so if a person was to leave a job they would have to give up their home? A (DM) We wouldn’t want to get a situation where if you didn’t have your job any more you’d have to move out of your

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Just as the season started we were hit with a couple of serious defects that had to be repaired immediately as this would affect navigation. Firstly the jetty at Gairlochy bearers gave up and the jetty was no longer fit for purpose - this jetty was built in 1997 with a 20 year life expectancy and its collapse meant we were restricted in the berthing availability for large craft.

Then at the beginning of the year Corpach jetty fendering timber was ripped off by a visiting craft after rope became entangled behind the timber and attached itself to the vessel’s prop. Both these were a danger to vessel movements and had to be fixed immediately.

The canal is an old structure - it is constantly in need of repair. Defects are always prioritised by our engineering/asset teams. This can be frustrating at times because I think the West should always come first but in the bigger scale of things other areas have higher priorities.

The season has been slightly slower than last year as we have encountered a number of issues.

Laggan Avenue reduced draft due to a build up of silt meaning vessels’ maximum draught at present is 3.5mtr instead of our usual 4.1mtr.

Number of bridge issues at Aberchalder, Tomnachurich & Laggan: these also had an impact on road traffic. The bridges are part of the National Road Network and are BEAR’s responsibility but often it is the canal maintenance team who are called out to carry out repairs in an emergency.

Events Sail Caledonia, Corpach to Moray Firth 26th May to 2nd June. (17 dinghies + support vessels) Three Peaks Yacht Race, Corpach 12th to 14th June. (9 - 10 yachts this year)

Works Prioritised Embankment protection at Woodend Accommodation Bridge. Sunken Drain and road work Shengain Aqueduct. Disabled access Corpach Sea-lock gates (subject to Historic Scotland permission.

Opening times As from 28th May we will be open from 8:00am until 6:00pm – 7 days a week.

Warm weather musings I am now going to take off my supervisor hat and thinking to myself after many days of glorious sunshine how much joy I get from seeing folk use the canal and how important it is to the Highlands, even if you are not a boater. Locally we use it to kayak; walk/jog (sometimes sponsored); cycle; exercise dogs: feed the ducks: walk the prams; sit back relax & sunbathe; horse ride; fish: so many other uses that although we do not get revenue are so important to the local community.

John Stafford Area Superintendent

Top: Work on new Gairlochy jetty & Corpach jetty before local maintenance team repaired it. Below: Key sites- Corpach, Banavie, Moy Bridge & Gairlochy all looking pristine.

Sorry John, we can only afford to print your great pictures in black and white, but readers can see them n

colour in the online newsletter on our website, www.kilmallie.org.uk

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Liberty Q&A KCC invited Liberty to attend our meeting on 26th March. Rumours had begun to abound about developments related to operations at the smelter and the proposed alloy wheels factory, so we felt we needed some firmer information from Liberty themselves. We were pleased that Duncan Mackison, Chief Executive of Jahama Estates accepted our invitation.

It was a measure of the intense curiosity about Liberty’s intentions that other nearby community councils came along to listen, and there was a good turnout from Kilmallie residents and businesses.

The session, chaired by Christine Hutchison, was intended solely for information gathering, to learn about Liberty’s plans over the next 5, 10, 20 years that might impact directly or indirectly on Kilmallie. It was not a forum for gathering community opinions - there will be further opportunity for this once we are better informed.

Duncan Mackison (DM) was accompanied by Alastair Nicholson (AN) from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) and Tim Stott (TS), Principal Planner, Highland Council, who supported with further information on strategic development and masterplanning respectively. We were grateful to them all for their contributions.

After Duncan’s short summary of Liberty’s activities, KCC asked some questions, and then the session was opened to some lively questions from the floor. Cllr Allan Henderson (AH) and Sue MacFarlane (SMF) (Vice Principal West Highland College) also contributed some information from the floor.

For those who couldn’t make the meeting we summarise here the main points of Liberty’s presentation, the questions that were asked and the answers we heard. We came away feeling much better informed, but with many other questions forming!

Summary of Liberty’s activities Clarification of names

• GFG** Group - parent company, privately owned

• Liberty - metals production, producing aluminium and steel (elsewhere)

• Jahama Estates - property management

• SIMEC – energy

• Liberty, Jahama and SIMEC all part of the GFG Group.

Five areas of activity 1) Development of alloy wheels factory on site adjacent to smelter

• has gained planning consent end Jan, detailed development and design now ongoing

• will start to go live in 2020

• will use aluminium produced on site to produce wheels. (In UK at moment, all automotive wheels are imported, so ambition is to become significant supplier to UK automotive industry)

• at peak production. aim to produce about 2M wheels per year, about 20% of volume required by UK

• Liberty recently acquired another aluminium smelter in France at Dunkirk, and is currently preferred bidder**** for French alloy wheels business, advantageous to Liberty here because it creates links to distribution of wheels in W Europe and provides greater expertise availability and flexibility

• advantage of wheels production next to smelter - can use liquid aluminium and take it straight to product, rather than producing ingots, cooling, and transporting them. A huge amount of energy is required to remelt the ingots and then process. So there are significant benefits to generate energy locally to smelt aluminium and then convert straight to product.

• impact on distribution and transport infrastructure – 2M wheels pa needs approx 7-8 articulated lorries to leave the factory each day. No option other than road transportation at present

• alloy wheels factory will employ about 400 staff.

• a modern highly automated manufacturing process, so most of roles are high level providing jobs for qualified and aspirant engineers, so majority need to be attracted into the area from elsewhere,

2) Housing Housing capacity is an issue in this area, so Liberty have to create about 300 houses for the people who will come to work at the alloy wheels factory.

• Liberty are looking at this from a number of different angles

• working closely with Highland Council, looking at areas where there is already consent to build new houses

• focussing on a number of different streams of housing provision; people are unlikely to move here and buy a house on day 1 - more likely to work for a few months and then move the family up. Looking at ownership models that will allow people to come and work in area for a while and then possibly choose to buy further downstream.

• considering a number of locations – from sites which Jahama Estate owns itself, through to working with third parties who own land that already has consent for housing, and also working

with Highland Council who have some sites already with consent for development - Liberty might choose to put some of their houses within those developments.

• ground conditions are the biggest challenge from a technical perspective with the obligation to deal with a lot of peat

• they want to think carefully where to build so they provide houses that are affordable for the people who work there, with mortgages fundable at a market rate.

3) Wind energy The estate (114,000 acres) is effectively the water catchment area for the hydro system which provides power for the smelter. To the eastern end of the estate at Laggan they are at the preplanning stage for a windfarm:

• approx 40 turbines to generate approx 170 MW electricity

• the area is adjacent to the Stronelairg wind farm, so from a technical perspective a good area, high wind speeds, adjacent to the Beauly Denny line and the large substation at Melgarve to feed the energy into the grid.

• the energy produced there will be consumed by Liberty themselves

• they see themselves as landowner, producer and consumer of electricity

• it is green energy - they want to consume renewable energy

• it enables them to control the pricing that they pay for the energy for the smelter.

4) Hydro They’re also looking at hydro schemes in a number of locations

• it’s a post-subsidy era so making returns out of hydro is more difficult

• looking at a number of sites throughout the area, eg around Leanachan, just received consent for a scheme at Laroch Bridge, and looking at a couple of other ones as well.

• hydro schemes are an opportunity to generate green energy to consume themselves

• in Scotland they’d like to be able to generate all the electricity needed to supply all their activities, If they couldn’t consume it all here, it would be consumed at either their Dalzell Steel Plant or at Clydebridge.

5) The estate Overall not been well cared for in recent years. A lot of properties on it, most of which are in need of some attention:

• 41 properties ranging in size from former sporting lodges, eg Mamore Lodge and Killiechonate Lodge through to small houses, cottages and bothies

• they’ve completed a structural survey of the buildings and are starting to work up a financial model to renovate them for residential letting or holiday accommodation

• will require a significant amount of investment: they are working on the business case at the moment.

** Gupta Family Group *** JAHAMA Estates is the 5th largest private landowner in Scotland. They own Highland Estates, over 114,000 acres located around Fort William, Kinlochleven and Laggan.

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We hope you have been seeing the improvements to the Kilmallie Community Gardens from each of our monthly sessions. New bushes have been planted, the raised beds painted with creosote and the bed alongside the picnic area has been tidied. We had a great time at the recent ceilidh held on 21st April 2018. A huge thank you to Bobby and Jessie Henderson for all their hard work in arranging the event and we were delighted to announce that

£660 was raised to be split 50/50 between Kilmallie Community Centre and MacMillan Nurses. Customers who have used the Centre over the past few weeks are: Children’s Parties, Lochaber Music Festival, Lochaber Wind Band, George Rodgers Band, The Highland Council, Ballet West, Lochaber Federation WRI, Aye to Aye, SNP, Music for All and Scottish Canoe Association. We were delighted to welcome a new regular booking from Sense Scotland for their Senstronic Music Workshops. We hope they enjoy using our super facilities! Our thanks go to our regular customers for supporting the Centre: The Mustardseed Fellowship, Mothers &

Toddlers, Zumba classes, Scottish Country Dancing, NHS Highland, Olde Tyme Dancing and Kilmallie Community Council. A reminder of the contact details for the Centre which are as follows: Tel: 01397 600111 info@kilmalliecommunitycentre.co.uk Our thanks once more go to our Centre Manager, Jimmy Milne, for all his hard work and commitment to the Centre. We hope all readers and users of the Kilmallie Community Centre have a lovely Summer! Sarah Kennedy FMAAT FCCA (Treasurer)

**** update at 29/05/18 - Liberty won its bid for the last remaining French manufacturer of aluminium wheels, AR Industries (ARI)

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wind loads Since February this year the yellow warning notices referring to the Stronelairg wind farm have been in evidence in Kilmallie. As the abnormal loads are to be using our roads until the summer, here is an overview of this project and how it affects Kilmallie residents. Stronelairg Wind Farm is a 66 turbine SSE project located on the Garrogie estate south east of Fort Augustus; it will utilise some of the existing infrastructure at the nearby Glendoe hydro scheme. Construction work started in April 2017 and is expected to be completed in October 2018. The huge vehicles transporting turbine and components were first seen travelling through Corpach in September 2017. After a winter construction break the road movements have recommenced for a further period of 20 weeks. The trucks leave Corpach harbour using the local road network - the A830 from the harbour, then onto the

A82 trunk road heading north, finally turning right onto the B862 to the site entrance. A police escort ensures the safe movement of these large delivery vehicles, access is maintained for emergency vehicles and vehicles are enabled to pass the delivery vehicles safely at a number of points along the route as guided by the police. The harbour at Kyle of Lochalsh is also used as a landing point for the components. Kilmallie residents can check on the schedule of planned abnormal load movements through Corpach by going

onto the SSE website (sse.com/stronelairg). Scroll down the page to find > deliveries then > schedule. Alternatively you can call the Project Liaison Manager on 07342 027420. Chris Strong

After our long winter it was good to see the bulbs along the road when they came up to provide some colour.

Unfortunately, most of the cordylines didn't survive the snow and ice over the winter this year. We have been consulting on possible alternatives for the centre of the tubs and the general feeling is that we should use more native species. So we are trialling a mixture of plants including small Pieris and Box together with some golden evergreen trees and will monitor how good they look and how well they survive. Summer planting is later this year because of the late Spring but should be in place by the time the newsletter comes out. Our plants come from local business, Garden Stop, who are very helpful and source their plants from a west of Scotland grower. We are adding a few more roadside tubs this year and over railing displays opposite the sawmill. Of course all this costs money so please continue to pop your change into the collecting tin at the Co-op. Sue Chadney and Moira Shearer Corpach in Colour co-ordinators

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page 12 Blar Mor notice of planning application

Annual Inter School Tag Rugby Competition

We held our annual Inter School Tag Rugby Competition on Wednesday 9th May , unfortunately the weather wasn't as kind as the previous year, but all the boys and girls attending gave their all and showed off their newly acquired skills - there was some great rugby played and hopefully some of the players will have caught the Rugby Bug...and come along and join us at our regular training Sessions at Banavie.

A massive thank you to all the schools who attended and to Bridget Thomas and her band of Active School Co-ordinators - we couldn't run this without their support. Thanks must also go to Ryan Davies, Community Coach, Stevie & Ailsa McAleer and all the Rugby Club volunteers who came along to help with refereeing the games.

The winners in the morning were: P4-P5 - Caol PS and P6-P7 Lundavra PS The winners in the afternoon were S1-S2 - Mallaig HS 'B' Team.

We also had a surprise visitor on the same day - The Calcutta Cup. This was brought up to the Clubhouse for all the boys and girls to see and have the photograph taken with it. The kids loved it....even the big ones got in on the act!

See you all next year ☺

Pitch Repairs We at currently off our pitch at Banavie as it is going under its annual maintenance - all rugby training has been moved to the King George V Park (next to the leisure centre). The Youth Awards/last day is on Saturday 16th June.

1XV End of Season Result Well that's the season finished for the 1XV - this year we played in a new league - BT West Division 3. We have enjoyed our first year in the league and finishing in 5th place. We look forward to improving our position next season. We hope our players enjoy their summer break. If you fancy giving rugby a try next season, come and join us when our pre season training starts. Watch out for announcements on our Facebook page and website. www.lochaberrfc.co.uk Pauline Donaldson New players of all abilities are welcome – if you fancy giving rugby a try, come and see us at Banavie. We are 1st left after the Moorings Hotel www.lochaberrfc.co.uk

Kilmallie 1st team has been playing well and is currently top of the National Division. The team played Ballachulish on the 12th May in the 1st round of the Camanachd Cup and the teams also played for the Iain Aitchison Cup (this cup wasn’t played for in 2017 to due to weather) and Kilmallie beat Ballachulish in this game. Both teams met again on the 26th May in a Balliemore Cup game and played for the Iain Aitchison Cup for the 2018 year, once again Kilmallie came out on tops. It was nice for both teams to get together to remember Iain who was connected to both clubs.

Kilmallie are through to the Semi Final of the Balliemore Cup and it is being played on Saturday 23rd June against Beauly. Here are the fixtures for late June and July: Saturday 23rd June Beauly Vs Kilmallie (Semi-final of the Balliemore Cup) Boleskine Vs Kilmallie (2nd) Saturday 7th July Inverness Vs Kilmallie Lewis Vs Kilmallie Saturday 14th July Kilmallie Vs Caberfeidh (2nd) Saturday 21st July Kilmallie Vs Inveraray Lochaber Vs Kilmallie Saturday 28th July Kilmallie Vs Fort William Linda Campbell

Kilmallie Shinty Club

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Highland Council have served notice of their intended forthcoming application for Planning Permission in Principle for mixed use development, comprising 200-250 residential units, commercial, hospital, education and community use. on the Blar Mor. As part of the statutory process they are required to carry out a pre-application consultation with the community. This took place on Monday 11th June, unfortunately too late for our copy deadline to report on in this issue. However a representative from the Council has been invited to KCC’s meeting on 25th June. If you weren’t able to get to the consultation on 11th, you are welcome to come along and contribute your views at that meeting.

Monday 25th June, 7:30pm Kilmallie Community Centre

The proposals are shown in the plan opposite.

Some of the things KCC will be considering are:

• does the design adequately address the needs of pedestrians and cyclists?

• does the layout adequately address the needs of children?

• how will pleasant public spaces be created?

• how will the loss of peat as a carbon store be compensated?

• how are low energy principles addressed in the layout?

• when will Highland Council start spelling Blar Mor correctly? ☺

• what impact will the housing development have on the present housing list?

• if the houses are intended to serve an increase in population in the area, is the capacity of existing roads, schools, medical, social and leisure facilities adequate?

• does the plan hint at an intention to create a road link to a new bridge over the River Lochy?

in memory of the blar 3000BC - 2012AD

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KILMALLIE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS FUND The AGM of the Christmas Lights Fund was held in Kilmallie Community Centre on Tuesday 17th May 2018. The chairman delivered a short report of the group’s activities over the last year. The main priority of the group over the last twelve months has been to maintain and, where possible, to improve the quality of the Christmas displays and we feel that we have been fairly successful in this.

The Pole Lights operated well with very few failures although we do recognise that some of the older lights are past their best. We will attempt to freshen these up by replacing some lengths of the fluorescent tubing over the summer. Unfortunately two of our best lights could not be displayed due to the fact that, despite several requests from us, BEAR have not replaced the fittings on two of the new lamp standards. We will continue to pursue this with BEAR.

Our biggest problem with the pole lights has been getting them up and down each year. This is due mainly to the inexperience (and decrepitude!) of our construction team. Consequently we were immensely grateful to Robert Skinner (Thistle Access) for coming to our rescue this year and for completing both tasks so safely and quickly. Robert has offered to help again next year if pressure of his other commitments allow.

The Christmas Trees were greatly improved and much admired this year. The trees were larger and more shapely than in previous years and the purchase of some new low voltage LED lights made a huge difference. The recurrent problem with the Corpach lights failing seems to have been solved by the installation of a more highly-rated circuit breaker. Thanks to Robbie Milne and Dougie Dykes for this latter. The stabilizing gizmo devised by Willie Fortune and constructed and donated by MacPherson Welding has resolved the problem of the tree blowing down.

The Switch-On Ceremony was held on 17th November 2017 and was once again well attended and a very convivial affair. Three youngsters from local primary schools performed the ceremony in front of about 80 people and afterwards we were all treated to an amazing array of cakes and refreshments from Tanya Ross and her team from STAR for Harris. Many thanks to them and to all who turned out on the night. We now seem to have an established format for this occasion and will probably stick with it in future - all very weather dependent of course!

Finance - our main source of finance this year has been, once again, the Race Night at the Tradewinds and we are extremely grateful to Linda and Duncan for their continuing support. Linda’s brother, Brian, was a terrific announcer for this event which was held in October. Duncan has been unwell recently and members of the group send him our very best wishes.

Future activities for the Group will include an assessment of the pole lights and any necessary repairs. We also need to keep a close watch on our finances to ensure that we always have a working reserve of funds in case of last minute problems or repairs.

We are always on the lookout for new members to join the group. If interested please contact our secretary, Andy Wilmington, on 772499, or any members of the committee.

In conclusion we must acknowledge the help and support we receive from members of the community. Without them there would be no Christmas Lights: • Tradewinds staff and customers • Robert Skinner (Thistle Access) • STAR for Harris • Stuart Hood and Gary Servant • Robbie Milne and Council Lighting Dept • Gordon Penman, Slipway Autos • MacPhersons Welding • Joy Biggin • Jimmy Milne.

On a personal note, the chairman thanked fellow committee members for their hard work and support over the last twelve months.

Paul Brian Chairman

News from Corpach Woods

Thanks to the volunteers who came to our successful work party in the Cnoc nam Faobh oak wood at the beginning of May.

Our main job was to go along the main path cutting back overhanging vegetation. We also completed the usual litter pick which amongst other things produced an old rusty sheet of corrugated iron, lengths of rope and also lots of bits of plastic, the remains of artificial flowers blown from the neighbouring graveyard. We also removed an old rope swing which had become dangerously frayed and we finished off by removing a few alien species, rhododendron and sitka spruce.

Along with all other organisations we are having to cope with the new data regulations. We have a membership list which is kept by the company secretary. It has members'

names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses. All our communications are by email or by news items in this community newsletter. If you have any questions, if you are not sure if you are a member, or if you wish to become one, then you can contact the secretary or any of our directors. Our directors are: John Ireland, Simon Wells, Angela Mercer, Colin Gray, Jan MacLugash, Alan Thomson and Gill Barnes. Our members' data is not used for any purpose other than making contact. If you are a member and do not receive emails about our meetings or work parties, then you can add your email address to our mailing list by emailing me at pjbiggin@gmail.com

Paul Biggin

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40th Annual Exhibition

ART LOCHABER is going back in time for the 2018 Annual Exhibition, 40 years in fact, and the show this year is to be held 27th July – 11th August, 10am - 6pm daily.

Founder member of the group of artists, and former Head of the Art Department at Lochaber High School, Alistair Smyth, will be doing the honours on the Opening Night.

The Exhibition will take place in the delightful space at the Ben Nevis Distillery, Fort William, the show’s venue since 2000. There have been various venues over the 40 years but the distillery is self-contained, spacious and very popular.

Art Lochaber is a lively innovative group whose members hail from all over the Lochaber area, often travelling great distances to attend events. The artists look forward to welcoming you to their 40th annual show, which will include a broad range of work in mixed media, oil, watercolour, pastel, batik and wood.

All are welcome to browse or buy.

Lorna Finlayson

Summer strolls While we have hills a-plenty in Kilmallie to walk up, we are also fortunate to have many lower level walks to enjoy as an outing with the family, or on your own to enjoy the beauty and tranquillity of our area. One such walk is the Erracht Oakwood walk. To get there you go up the back road from Banavie towards Gairlochy, turn left after the bridge over the River Loy and park at the small car park by the forestry track. Go through the gate and carry on along the flattish track, ignoring tracks going up to the right or down to the left. If feeling energetic you can turn up to the right after about ¾ mile onto a steepish path that leads up, along, then down through the mature oakwood. Our Scottish oaks are sessile oaks (quercus petraea)– they are characterised by being taller and narrower than English oaks and have no stalks on their acorns which are instead attached directly to the outer twigs. Check this out! After descending this narrow path return back along the main track until you reach where you turned uphill a

wee while ago - if you decided to do this - then turn right onto the track just about opposite the turn up to the oaks. This track descends gently towards the River Loy. Turn left to follow the track back to where you started, walking parallel to the river, watching out for dragonflies – also for the odd cleg! This is a lovely walk for an early summer day, when the trees are clothed in bright, fresh green, or of course to enjoy the autumn colours of the woodland. Actually, it's a delightful and easy walk at any time of year. The

total distance is 2¾ miles if you include the oakwood trail and you could push an all-terrain buggy (except for the oakwood path). There is lots for children to look out for – red squirrels, acorns, wild flowers. The bottom path can be a bit muddy at times - but that's Kilmallie for you! You can look this walk up online for further details on the flora and fauna – Walkhighlands.co.uk and Wildlochaber.com

Sue Chadney Thanks to Wild About Lochaber for permission to use this photo

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Banavie Quarry The current consent for quarry operations at Banavie runs until 2023. Well in advance of this expiring, Breedon intend to submit a planning application in the autumn for consent to continue operations until 2043 and to extend the footprint area of the quarry. For applications of this nature, they are obliged to hold a community consultation prior to submitting the application. This they did on 7th May at the Rugby Club, which about 50 people attended.

Some of the information that they presented at the consultation is included on the following two pages. If you would like larger scale colour versions of these and additional display boards, please email us at newsletter@kilmallie.org.uk.

KCC attended the consultation. Views we heard being expressed to Breedon included: • relief that no extension of working

hours was involved • concern that their need to extend

the quarry was to some degree a consequence of their failing to meet the conditions of the present consent to landscape the back face

• concern over dust and noise • concern over lorry speeds • concern over increased requests for

night time working. The quarry ‘s current consent does not permit night time working. But with significant recent road repairs and alterations in and around Fort William, they frequently receive requests from Transport Scotland and BEAR to service night time road works. Breedon cannot accede to these requests if local residents

object. Most residents do not object to it happening occasionally for short times - we all benefit if local road repairs can be carried out at night to minimise delays, closures and inconvenience. But increasingly frequent requests from BEAR, and for longer periods, are causing residents significant concern.

• desire for local ecology and species to be reflected when the back face of the quarry is restored

• desire for a condition that the back face of the quarry is regraded and restored before further extraction is permitted

• concern about the threat to the ecological and environmental value of the unimproved pasture land SE of the quarry, either through neglect or inappropriate development.

If you have any comments about Breedon’s proposals, please contact Gavin Mennie, Breedon’s Director of Estates, Planning and Geology, see email below, but also do please let KCC know so that we can represent the community’s views when the planning application is submitted.

KCC have asked Breedon for some cross sections to show the difference between the existing and proposed back face of the quarry, and also for an image to illustrate the impact on the appearance of the quarry as seen from the Blar.

Why not go along to Quarry Liaison Group meetings

The quarry liaison group generally meets twice a year. Breedon emphasised that individual residents are most welcome to attend - Gavin Mennie said he would encourage everyone who feels affected by quarry operations to attend these meetings. If you would like to be informed of meeting dates, agendas and to receive minutes, please contact him. The next meeting will also include a tour of the quarry. Do go along if you want to see on the ground the implications of Breedons’ proposals to extend their working area. Please let them know if you would like to attend.

Next meeting: 3pm, August 21st at Banavie Quarry

STOP PRESS Also... special meeting of the Liaison Group 4pm, Wed 27th June at Banavie Quarry Breedon have been asked by BEAR and Transport Scotland to arrange this special meeting to discuss the regional road maintenance programme and the planning constraints that are in place at the quarry. Contact Gavin Mennie for final confirmation of date and time.

Contact details for Gavin Mennie: Director of Estates, Planning and Geology Breedon Northern Limited Ethiebeaton Quarry, Monifieth Angus , DD5 3RB

gavin.mennie@breedongroup.com

Interesting things KCC learned

at the consultation:

Breedon is the ‘E’ not the ‘B’ in

BEAR (because they used to be

called Ennstone. BEAR stands for Babtie, Ennstone And

Ringway, the original companies

in the consortium. BEAR is now

an alliance of Eurovia, Jacobs

and Breedon Group plc.

The rock from Banavie is

typically used on projects within

a 25mile radius of the quarry.

carbon papers

Do low-energy buildings have an overheating problem? In this issue I take a quick look at the physics behind summer overheating problems and unpack claims that high levels of insulation make the problem worse or more likely. New homes, even those built merely to building regulations standard (otherwise known as the worst performing home you can legally build) are much better insulated and much more airtight than the vast majority of homes built in the past. Homes built to Passive House standard are even better insulated, and radically more airtight. It is sometimes claimed that all this attention on improving the winter performance of homes is causing them to overheat more often, or more severely, than the leaky homes of old. On the face of it this seems obvious – in the winter you put on warm clothing to stay warm, but do the same on a warm summer’s day and you’ll get too hot. Indeed, that is the slant taken by the Daily Mail (so it must be true!). It’s not quite so simple as this, but the claims are not completely unfounded either. Let’s take a quick look at the physics involved. Insulation and airtightness are good at slowing the flow of heat from a warm place to a cold one. In winter this means that a well-insulated, airtight home needs less heating to maintain a comfortable temperature than a poorly-insulated, leaky home. The insulation is slowing the flow of heat from the warm inside of the house to the cold outside. The same is true of a warm coat on a cold day, it is slowing the flow of heat from your body to the cold outside world, meaning you need to burn less energy in order to stay warm. The warm-coat analogy doesn’t work so well in summer. UK temperatures during hot weather reach the high 20s, and occasionally the low 30s, which is still below the temperature of your body. The insulation in a coat is no longer useful when we are trying to stay cool because, unlike in winter, we want the heat flow from our body to the outside world to be high. Conversely, temperatures in a house should be in the low-to-mid 20s, which is below temperatures experienced outside during heatwaves. The heat flow should be in the opposite direction to our ‘warm jumper’

example. In these conditions insulation and air-tightness will slow the rate of heat flow from the hot outside to the cool inside, which is exactly what we want. Just as a thermos flask can keep a drink hot by slowing the rate of heat flow from inside to outside, it can also keep a drink cool by slowing the rate of heat flow in the other direction. But houses are not thermos flasks and very well insulated homes do sometimes overheat. They sometimes overheat very badly. Why? A house on a hot day gains heat from several sources, some from inside the house (appliance use, hot water use and storage, body heat) and some from outside the house (conduction through the walls/floor/roof from the warm outside or from sun-heated surfaces of walls and roofs, ventilation/infiltration bringing warm air in and the sun shining through the windows). Insulation and air-tightness help to reduce the gains shown in bold but do nothing to reduce the others. (In fact triple glazed windows also reduce solar gains a little, but I’ve ignored this here for simplicity’s sake If these heat gains are high enough, for example on a sunny day in a house with lots of glazing, then a house can become warmer than the outdoor air temperature. When that happens insulation and air-tightness go from being your friend (keeping the heat out) to being your foe (keeping the heat in). A house that is gaining heat much more quickly than it is losing it will warm up until the gains match the losses (heat losses increase as the difference in temperature between inside and outside increases). We call this the equilibrium temperature. In a

poorly insulated, leaky house the equilibrium temperature will never be very much higher than the outside temperature because there is so little to stop the heat flowing out of the house. In a very well insulated house the equilibrium temperature can be much higher since it is so well insulated and air-tight. It takes a big temperature difference for the heat losses to match the heat gains. We are back to our warm-coat analogy. To illustrate this I built a simple model using DesignBuilder – a dynamic simulation tool that allows us to model the performance of a building over time. My model was a simple 10 m by 5 m medium-weight building in London. I made four versions of the model. The first two were deliberately designed to overheat – with large (80% of the wall area), unshaded glazing on the south aspect and no attempt to reduce internal gains and no window opening. One of these versions was constructed to represent a ‘typical’ existing building (100mm insulation in the loft, no insulation in the walls or floor, basic double glazing, poor air-tightness), the other was constructed to represent a building with Passive House levels of insulation, glazing and airtightness (although not a Passive House standard building, since in order to reach the standard summer comfort criteria must be met (The Passive House standard includes a requirement that buildings must not exceed 25°C more than 10% of the time, so this building wouldn’t actually meet the Passive House standard, I’ve just chosen typical Passive House values for insulation and air-tightness for illustration). They were both simulated during two weeks of very hot summer weather. contd overpage

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page 29 our Highland councillors’ corner

The planned expansion of Liberty will not impact on Highland Council's budget, as Highland Council does not pay for that type of work through the revenue or capital budgets. However the Highland Council is building affordable housing (subject to planning) to meet the needs of people in Lochaber who cannot afford to compete in the open market. Affordable housing includes, social rent, mid-market rent and low cost home ownership. No housing is being built by Highland Council for Liberty, rather it is for an assessment needs in Lochaber, in partnership with Scottish Government and its housing partners. The housing needs and assessment takes account of the economic activity in the area which obviously includes the smelter expansion.

Any council housing built as part of the affordable housing programme is funded through the Scottish Government grant, prudential borrowing (which is repaid through the rents collected for all the council housing) and the Highland Council Landbank Fund (gathered from second/holiday homes extra rates). Highland Council does carry traditional housing debt which is also paid from rents (not Highland Council budget) as the houses still belong to Highland Council having not been transferred in the 80's due to the wishes of tenants. The Housing

Revenue Account belongs to the householders but is administered by the council.

The Highland Council and Scottish Government anticipate spending over £60 million in new affordable housing over a 5 year period in Lochaber, however there is no additional impact on the Highland Council budget as the rent from the new houses covers the cost of the prudential borrowing. Of course Liberty may build housing themselves for sale or direct rent to their own workers and private developers may also decide to build speculative housing for sale due to the expansion of the smelter and increased demand for homes, but that will be a commercial decision for those companies to make.

There inevitably will be extra demand and pressure on services, and infrastructure, when the planned expansion goes ahead, but that will also be mitigated by extra commercial and domestic rates being collected in Lochaber. All this has also to be balanced and judged against the economic prosperity developments such as these bring.

Cllr Allan Henderson (Independent)

Expansion of the smelter should not directly impact the Council's finances negatively, but the way Councils are currently funded means there is the potential for it to impact negatively. The needed investment in housing, for example, is ring-fenced from the financing of day-to-day Council services so should not harm Council finances. However, economic growth will create more demand for Council services and this extra demand cannot be met fully from the Council Tax the extra houses will generate - it's simply not a large enough proportion of Council income to pay for the schools, road use and other services. This extra demand will have to be met from increased grant funding from the Scottish Government.

The broad issue raised by this question is how local infrastructure is funded. Councils can fund infrastructure from Council Tax receipts but they do not do this explicitly. Council Tax makes up a very small proportion of Council income and the rest is Scottish Govt grants, so most local infrastructure - be it roads, housing, schools etc. - is funded from the Scottish Government either directly or through grants to local councils.

There may be valid reasons for the Scottish Govt to want to keep tight control of the purse strings. But making Councils almost very largely dependent on central government for funding isn't efficient. One of the biggest issues is that Councils have no direct return from economic growth in their areas. To take Liberty specifically, the new wheel plant and all the economic activity that goes with it will increase tax receipts substantially. Fort William will become a bigger economic area. The Council will not receive direct return from the investment that is necessary to support that growth.

This is the argument that is often cited for an increased proportion of Council income to come from local taxation, including ideas like a land value tax, local sales or income tax, tourist tax etc.. Such measures would mean the Council's income from taxation grows directly with the economic value that is created. Currently we have a system where the increased tax receipts go to the Scottish Govt first and then we have to hope we get a fair share back.

Cllr Ben Thompson (Independent)

With community concerns about the potential impact of impending change,

KCC put the following to our Highland Councillors.

I would like to apologise for not producing anything for your cur-rent newsletter. I am sorry but I had completely misunderstood the format - not realising we should make individual contribu-tions. By the time I discovered it was too late to submit anything well-researched. As an ex-schoolteacher I am aware that this excuse may strike some as very lame - along the lines of 'the dog ate my homework'

- but I promise to be more diligent and timely in the future. Hoping for your indulgence - on this occasion! Best wishes Cllr Denis Rixson Scottish Liberal Democrats

We understand that as Highland Council taxpayers, we are still

paying off the loan taken out to build houses for the influx of pulp

mill employees 50 years ago?

How much is Highland Council going to have to pay for the housing,

services and infrastructure needed to enable Liberty's planned

expansion? How will it be funded?

How will it impact on Highland Council's budget, on the people

who are already suffering the impact of heavy service cuts and on

future generations?

A fantastic gig from the fantastic Poozies back in May - great music, great craic, and some brilliant interaction

from the younger folk in the front row! Unfortunately we had to cancel our June gig with the Rubber Wellies at the last minute due to bereavement. But another really great

night coming up...

Saltfishforty are must-see musicians singers - the very best of the vibrant contemporary traditional Orkney

scene.

Don’t miss them. Thursday 16th August

Ben Nevis Distillery 7:30 for 8pm

Email creelevents@gmail.com for ticket info and to be added to our mailing list

Susie and Mandy

In the top graph, the bottom wavy line shows the external air temperature and can be seen to be reaching above 30°C on three of the days (peaks are daytime temperatures, troughs are night time). The dark line shows the operative temperature (the average of the air temperature and internal surface temperatures to measure comfort) for the typical existing building, which looks pretty uncomfortable; almost always above the outdoor air temperature and reaching a maximum temperature of 35°C. But the model with Passive House standards of insulation and air-tightness (the top grey line) is much worse; above 38°C for the whole period and reaching a peak of 46°C. So in a really poorly designed building, one in which the designer has given no thought to overheating at all, and in which the occupants don’t think to, or can’t (security, noise, midges) open the windows to cool off, insulation and air-tightness can indeed make overheating much more severe. Buildings with big, unshaded glazing facing south, east or west are surprisingly common. Insulating and sealing buildings to current building regulations will cause these buildings to have severe a overheating problem (yes, even in Scotland!). Putting in

Passive House levels of insulation and air-tightness, without taking other measures to reduce the overheating risk, will make the problem worse still. But it doesn’t have to be like this. By designing our buildings carefully, thinking about summer comfort as well as winter comfort, we can move away from our ‘warm jumper’ analogy and back to our ‘thermos flask’ one. For the next two models I reduced the size of the southern glazing to 30% of the wall area, added a 1m deep overhang above the window, reduced the gains from appliances by 30%, the gains from lighting by 50% (equivalent to switching to LEDs from old style ‘low energy’ CFL lighting) and allowed windows to open during the night time. The temperatures, over the same week of weather, for the two improved models are shown in the second graph. Note that the scale has changed from the first graph. The measures I’ve taken to reduce overheating are effective for both the poorly-insulated and the well-insulated buildings, with peak internal temperatures (dark line for the poorly insulated building, grey line for the well insulated building) now being below peak external temperatures (lower thin line) for both buildings. But the improvement is much bigger for the well-insulated building (grey line), which now is experiencing peak temperatures more than 2°C lower than those of the poorly insulated building. The equilibrium temperature in the middle of the day for the well insulated building is still much higher than for the poorly insulated one, but because the building is gaining heat so slowly it doesn’t get near to it before cooler night-time temperatures arrive and the building can cool down once more. In summary it is possible to design low-

energy buildings that perform better in winter and in summer, through careful attention to reduction of summer heat gains, but current building regulations do not do enough to ensure this. If you are in the process of having a home built for you, or thinking of it, ask your architect/designer about overheating. If you get the impression they haven’t thought very much about it then be concerned and seek expert advice. I’d say this even if your house is being built ‘only’ to current building regulations. The Passive House standard includes a criterion for overheating. I’d recommend trying to do much more than merely just meeting those criteria. Low-energy buildings that are robust to summer overheating risk will become increasingly important as our climate warms. The modelling I’ve done here was quick and approximate, merely to illustrate the point. Further improvements in the summer performance of the highly insulated building could have been made. Internal heat gains could have been reduced further still (by specifying all A+++ rated appliances, daylight/occupancy control on the lighting and a well designed hot water system), and a smart ‘summer bypass’ mode could have been implemented on the heat recovery ventilation (MVHR) so that cool air would be ventilated into the house when the outdoor air temperature was low but that the heat recovery would still work to keep the cool in during the hotter periods. All of these things would be a good idea in the real world, and would further increase the summer performance advantage shown by the well-insulated building. Es Tresidder es@leangreenconsulting.co.uk www.leangreenconsulting.co.uk

CREEL is the local not-for-profit community group bringing small scale gigs to venues in and around Kilmallie.

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Will there be adequate parking

spaces?

Yes. The number of spaces that will be required will be determined as part of the planning application.

Will there be a bus stop, taxi rank,

waiting area, bike shed close to

entrance with covered seated area?

Yes that is what is being proposed. There is a Transport and Access Group overseeing this part of the plan.

Will it be possible to have live

information bus displays outside and

in waiting areas?

Yes.

Is there a plan to have a helipad at

the new hospital?

Yes.

Questions & Answers No 3 It is also important for everyone to be thinking about what is required to look after general health and well-being of the local population. We will also actively engage with younger people to hear direct from them about their views on services.

It is often the case that we all focus on services provided in hospitals. Thankfully most people spend only a tiny amount of time receiving hospital care. Thinking about the range of local services and support is really important and will be the focus of Q&A No.3. Please send in any questions you have and the Communications and Engagement Group will seek answers on behalf of the local community.

We plan to publish the next Q&A No 3 around June 2018.

Maimie Thompson, Chair Maimie.thompson@nhs.net 01463 704722

Sandy Stoddart, Vice-Chair AStoddart@churchofscotland.org.uk 01631 740 285

Ross Mackenzie, Area Manager – West Ross.mackenzie@nhs.net 01349 869268

Maimie Thompson from NHS

is attending KCC’s meeting

on Monday 25th June

Kilmallie Hall 7:30pm

Do come along if you want to ask her any questions

about the new hospital.

All welcome

When Rio Tinto first announced the strategic review of the smelter, there was widespread concern amongst employees and local residents. I know it was a period of uncertainty and I remember saying at hustings prior to the election that neither the Government nor I would leave any stone unturned in trying to find a solution. Since then, we’ve had the brilliant news that not only would the smelter continue, but that the new owner planned to expand operations and employ more people. The smelter is not just important for Fort William, but for the West Highlands and Scotland as a whole. In terms of the technicalities of the Government’s support, I think it is better that I quote in full:

“The underwriting arrangement that exists, agreed on commercial terms and for which the Government charges a commercial fee, is designed to guarantee long-term predictable energy costs for the Lochaber Smelter. The guarantee provides long-term predictable energy costs for the Lochaber Smelter due to a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) existing between two companies, SIMEC Energy (which runs the GFG Alliance’s energy production facilities) and Liberty British Aluminium (who run the smelter). Prices over the lifetime of the PPA are fixed at the outset according to the forecast of a leading energy industry consultancy. The PPA guarantee involves the Government guaranteeing to meet the future power purchase obligations of the aluminium smelter at Fort William in the event of a default.”

Local authorities, including Highland Council, are funded largely by a grant from the Scottish Government. In addition to this, they also keep all Council Tax and Non-Domestic Rates income raised in the area. The grant to Highland Council this year was very fair, and included slight increases in both revenue (for day to day spending) and capital (for infrastructure). Despite cuts to the Scottish Government budget, Highland Council has been relatively well-protected. Despite this, it is clear that budgets are tight across the board and so it is imperative that Highland Council’s priorities reflect the greatest needs.

Each council receives its share of funding according to a formula, which is agreed between the Scottish Government and the Coalition of Scottish Local Authorities. In addition to the main grant, there is also a special islands needs allowance which is provided to local authorities which have island communities, such as Highland Council. This aims to compensate authorities for any additional costs of island communities.

The only taxes which Highland Council collect directly are Council Tax and Non Domestic Rates income. Last year, the Government lifted the freeze on Council Tax. The freeze protected hard-working families who were already struggling to make ends meet during the financial crisis. During the freeze, Highland Council was compensated in full for any revenue they would have received if Council Tax had not been frozen and so there was no financial hit to local services because of the freeze. In fact, independent sources suggest local authorities were over-funded. Since the freeze was lifted, Highland Council has increased Council Tax by 3% every year. Anything higher than 3% would hit families extremely hard. All of the increased Council Tax revenues go straight into Council coffers.

The UK Government has cut funding to the Scottish Government since the Conservatives came to power in 2010 as part of their austerity agenda. Over the ten years to 2019/2020, the Scottish Government’s day to day spending will have been cut by £2.6 billion by the UK Government. This of course has an impact on the grant that can be passed on to Local Authorities.

Kate Forbes MSP Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch

Constituency office: 01349 863 888 Mobile: 07825532230

To balance their budget, Highland Council increasingly have to:

• cut public services • cut their funding to other

organisations who provide public services, and

• introduce higher direct charges for public services.

This impacts on us all in Highland, but most heavily on those most in

need and already struggling. How are Local Authorities funded

by the Scottish Government?

How and why does the Scottish Government curtail Local

Authorities' freedom to adjust taxes to help meet their budget

shortfall?

Does the UK Government curtail the Scottish Government's

freedom to adjust funding for Local Authorities, and if so how?

Has Liberty been offered any assurance of supply of energy at a subsidised rate, either routinely or in contingent circumstances (such as non-availability of its own hydro and windpower)?

missives from MSPs It’s the turn again for our constituency MSP, Kate Forbes. This time we asked her two questions...

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Well, it has been a long cold winter and spring not much better. However the gardens

are now looking good and we are able to enjoy the fruits of all the hard work. Like most of the gardens round here we have been battling the rabbit invasion. This has resulted in the whole garden being rabbit-proofed with netting. We tried a humane cat trap, chasing them etc, but nothing worked and short of letting the whippet loose, netting wire, hammer and nails and lots of hope was our solution. All the bedding plants are in and seem to be doing well; hanging baskets, window boxes and tubs need regular watering. If I remember, they also get fed with tomato fertilizer. I am told dead-heading is a good idea but never seem to get round to it. Oh well!

The veg garden is ok at the moment. Broad beans are looking fine and we have taken the tips out to stop them getting too tall and to stop black fly. The carrots are tucked under Enviromesh against carrot fly. We have tried two new varieties this year, Resistafly and Flyaway. No idea if they will taste good or if their supposed fly resistance will work. The climbing French beans have survived so far but a gale will put paid to them I think. We have three varieties of potato, Charlotte, Pink Fir Apple and King Edward: some of them are in bags and we need to keep an eye on water and keep topping them up with soil. We planted parsnips in a large plastic tub last year and this worked very well and they were nice and straight. Courgettes are in grobags outside: we tried them in the greenhouse but they got too big and we had to hack our way in. Need to remember to pick off the side shoots of tomatoes.

Anyone who watches Gardeners’ World will be aware of Monty Don's compost bins. Our 'compost' bin looks nothing like his! We have two and do our best but they just end up like garden soil. We put kitchen waste, grass cuttings and the hens’ bedding onto them. The afore-mentioned hens then eat all the kitchen waste which sort of defeats the purpose. We do however get a constant supply of lovely fresh eggs. If you put tea bags on the compost heap make sure they don't have plastic in them. Have a good time in your gardens. Morag Mackell

green fingers

letters Dear KCC,

I first discovered sea sickness at about the age of 5 or 6 in Loch Lochy on board the canal tug, Scot II. My mother’s uncle, Alec Grant, was the skipper and it may have come as a surprise to him that I was clearly no sailor when my family was packed with seafarers and master mariners. At the time the Scot was pulling the vessel in the photo (top right), the canal dredger. At that time it didn’t have that superstructure, rather a big steam driven dredge. In the middle of Loch Lochy they opened doors in the bottom of its hull and dumped the silt and muck that had been dredged from the floor of the canal. I was too busy being sick to pay much attention. Recently the dredger has re-appeared at Banavie. Sold by the canal it became a floating restaurant and now it has become a floating home and support vessel for events. AD Cameron’s history of the canal has a photo of Scot II, the hulk of which now lies at Fort Augustus but I wonder if any readers of the newsletter have a photo of either the dredger or the lock lifter that she used to tow?

Ronald Cameron Photo of the gate lifter from John Stafford’s collection of old photos.

More stories of the canal tug Scot II In next issue hopefully

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page 31

Thig an t-earrach Eu-coltach Dòmhnall Iain, ar caraid neònach Ameireacanach, tha mi a creidsinn gu bheil an t-saoghail a’ fas nas blàithe agus nas blàithe agus gur e sinne a tha coireach, gu ire mhòr. Tha mi air faicinn na èigh-shruthan air feadh an t-saoghail a’dol air ais agus a’ fas nas lugha thar iomadaich bhliadhna agus an aimsir againne a’ fas nas ropaiche. Thathar ag radh gu bheil na geamhraidhean nas giorra na bha iad agus gu bheil an t-earrach a’ tighinn nas tràithe, rud a tha duilich do luchd-sgì agus streapadairean.

Tha mi air a bhith a’ cumail clàr air na h-àmanan aig am bheil na tachartasan sònraichte a’ tachairt gach bliadhna airson greis, fheuch am faic mi pàtran sam bith Eu-coltach Dòmhnall Iain arithist tha mi a’ tuig-sinn nach eil amsir agus reathream an aon rud. Feumaidh sinn clàran a chumail airson ùine mhòr a bhith cinnteach gu bheil an reathream air atharrachadh fad ‘sa tha an aimsir ag atharrachadh bho là gu là, no mionaid gu mionaid. Ma cumas mi a’ dol a’ clàradh dh’fhaodadh e a’ sealltainn atharra-chaidhean ‘sa reathream ach tha iomadh laigsean’san iomairt a tha seo. Anns a’ chiad dol a mach, tha mi dualtach a dhol air falbh airson cola deug air thuras streapadaireachd

-sgi aig an àm seo den bliadhna, a’ fagail bearnan ‘san chlàr. A barrachd air sin, chan eil barantas ann gum faic mi a h-uile rud, ‘sa bhad , am mionaid a thachair e! Thathar ag radh gu bheil duileagan a’ tighinn air craob-han daraich nuair a tha an aimsir blàth gu leor agus gu bith duileagan air craobh uinnsinn nuair a tha na laithean fada gu leor agus gun bi na daraich a’ tighinn gu duileag nas triathe agus nas traithe fad ‘sa tha an reathream againne a’ fas nas blàithe. Gu mi-fhortanach, chan eil clàr agam iomlam a thaobh nan craobh a tha seo. S’docha gu bheil e direach a’ sealltainn na bliadhnicean anns an robh an geamradh beagan nas cruaidhe na càch. Tha mi air fàillig faire a chumail air na craobhan mu dheireadh air am bheil duileagan, na critheann agus fèar-na. Am bheil fear no tè eile aig am bheil clàr mar seo? Dh’fhaodadh e a bhith inntinneach gan chuir ri cheile no coimeas a dhèanamh eatarra. Tha mi’n dochas gun toir sibh uile mathanas air an droch Ghàidhlig agam!

Summary in English For a number of years I have been noting in my diary when things happen in spring. This has been partly to see if climate change has any influence. My records are very incom-plete and based purely on what I see near my house. Additionally, I invariably go away on a ski-mountaineering trip in early spring, which leaves gaps here and there. The table shows flowers coming to blossom, trees coming into leaf, the cuckoo calling and the appearances of old friends such as midges

and bracken. Perhaps somebody else has a similar record and the two could be com-bined.

Gaelic names

reathream climate aimsir weather. dìthean flowers duilleagan leaves blàth blossom blàth-sneachda snow drop lus a’ chrom cinn daffodils seòbhrag primrose pleantrainn plane tree or sycamore uighean losgainn frog Spawn fiadh-ubhal crab apple cuthag a gairm cuckoo calling sgithich hawthorns seillich willows craobh-mhalpais maple trees learag the larch beithean birches calltean hazel callaid fhaidhbhile beech hedge teile lime tree craobh shiris cherry tree darach / daraich oak/ oaks craobh-uinnsinn ash tree raineach bracken meanbh-chuileagan a biteadh midges biting faidhbhile dhubh copper beech

Ronald Cameron

Caismeachd an earraich

2010 2011 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Blàth-sneachda 23/1 30/1

Lus a’ chrom cinn air toiseachadh a thighinn 18/2 6/2 8/2 28/1 29/1

Dìthean air seòbhrag 20/2 19/3 29/3 20/3 2/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air phleantrainn 9/4 25/4

Uighean losgainn 12/3 13/4

Dìthean air lus a’ chrom-cinn 9/4 14/3 21/3 26/3 10/3 30/3

Duilleagan air fiadh-ubhal 9/4 11/4 15/4 7/4 27/3 16/4

Cuthag a gairm 14/4 16/4 1/5 23/4 22/4 10/5 1/5 27/4

Duilleagan air na sgithich 19/4 11/4 19/4 31/3 16/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air seillich 19/4 7/4 22/4 31/3 19/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air chraobh-mhalpais 19/4 10/4 24/4 6/4 10/4 16/4

Learag le dealgan 21/4 6/4 4/3 23/4 17/4

Beithean air toiseachadh a’ thionndadh uaine 26/4 15/4 28/4 6/4 23/4 3/4 18/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air calltean 26/4 8/5 4/5

Duilleagan a’tighinn air callaid fhaidhbhile 29/4 21/4 5/5 21/4 26/4 6/5 30/4 22/4

Duilleagan a’tighinn air teile 29/4 21/4 9/5 23/4 3/5 7/5 1/5 25/4

Blàth air craobh shiris 3/5 22/4 8/5 23/4 10/5 30/4 30/4

Duilleagan air a’chiad craobh daraich 7/5 23/4 20/5 29/4 1/5 6/5

Duileagan air craobh-uinnsinn 8/5 17/5 11/5 13/5 6/5

Raineach a’ nochdadh 12/5 18/5 29/4 9/5 8/5 17/4 10/5

Meanbh-chuileagan a biteadh 27/5 27/5 17/5 2/6 17/5

Duilleagan a’tighinn air fhaidhbhile dhubh 4/5 28/4 +9/5 27/4 10/5 7/5 2/5

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the latest on the new Belford Hospital Background This should be read in conjunction with the Question and Answer (Q&A) Document Q&A No 1, available on NHS Highland website.

NHS Highland has confirmed that a replacement for the Belford Hospital in Fort William is required as part of a wider redesign of local health and social care services in Lochaber. The redesign will look at the balance between services provided at home, in the community, in care homes as well as in the hospital.

Question & Answer No. 1, published in August 2017, largely focussed on what will be provided in the new hospital. This has prompted a number of follow up queries which we summarise below.

Questions and Answers No 2

SERVICE PLANNING

Will the predicted changes in the

population be allowed for in plans?

Yes. A number of planning assumptions will be made including any new local developments, population predictions, age profile of the workforce, recruitment challenges as well as advances in medicine and technology. For instance NHS Highland is aware of planned expansions at the Smelter.

Given all the pressures will the

hospital be down-graded?

No. That is not what the plan is. But there are challenges to overcome particularly around senior medical staffing such as consultant surgeons and physicians.

Is there a possibility that the new

Belford will be staffed like Caithness General Hospital and be

Rural Practitioner-led and not

consultant-led?

As set out in Q&A No. 1, the plan for senior medical cover in the new Belford Hospital is that it will be consultant-led. Exactly how it will be staffed is still being considered. It is worth pointing out that Caithness General Hospital is also a consultant-led

service. Senior medical staffing is provided through a combination of locally based consultants (anaesthetist and surgeon), with consultant physicians and surgeons working in the hospital but rotating from Raigmore.

There is also a small team of Rural Practitioners based in the hospital. Locum consultant cover is used to cover any gaps. Rural Practitioners have enhanced skills in emergency care and resuscitation. They are usually GPs who have had extended training or consultants in Emergency Medicine.

Is there a possibility that the

hospital won’t be built at all?

While nothing can be 100% certain, everyone is working towards building a replacement hospital as part of wider redesign of services. This is subject to the business case being prepared, and approved by the Scottish Government. The five year capital plan (funding for future buildings) which was considered by the board of NHS Highland on 27 March includes indicative funding for the replacement for the Belford.

SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS

Is building the new hospital a chance

to do things differently and improve

efficiency and access?

Definitely, but we don’t need to wait for a new hospital to make improvements. Local staff are always striving to carry out improvement work. The current building, however, limits some developments and the new building will make it easier to improve access and deliver modern services.

What is being put in place to avoid

people having to travel long

distances for very short

appointments?

A number of things including the roll out of NHS Near Me.

What is NHS Near Me?

One element of NHS Near Me is to use technology for remote consultations with specialist staff. It includes the use of the most up to date technology to reduce the need for people to travel. NHS Near Me appointments will initially take place in the Belford, and you will see your consultant or other specialist via a video link. It will also be possible for some people to have their appointment in their own home or in local health and social care facilities.

Testing this out does not need to wait for the new hospital, and we hope to confirm a plan for local use in the next few months once initial testing has been evaluated.

Use of technology will not replace hands-on care and will only be used when appropriate.

WORKFORCE

What is being done to ensure that

enough staff can be recruited to the hospital?

A lot of thought is going into this national problem. There is no single or easy answer and it will require different solutions over the short, medium and longer term. Senior clinicians and managers are looking at different options as to what the best way to staff the hospital will be.

While recruitment is a challenge, retention is also problematic. This is because of the onerous on-call arrangements. Work is also underway to look at how this might be improved.

HOSPITAL SERVICES

What services will be provided in the hospital?

These will be similar to those provided at present but more detail should become clear in the next few months.

Can we improve the appointment

system in Raigmore to take into

account local individual circumstances?

Yes. This already happens in a number of specialities in Raigmore where patients are given some choice around their appointments.

How many hospital beds are there

currently in the Belford?

There are 44. The combined assessment unit has 17 beds; Ward 1 has 15 beds; there are 10 day case beds and two beds in the High Dependency Unit.

How many hospital beds will there be

in the future?

It is likely to have around the same number. A detailed assessment will be made of future needs. This is likely to become clear in the next few months.

Will there be specialist mental

health beds incorporated in the new

hospital?

No.

It has been suggested that all the

beds will be located in single rooms?

This is correct. It is current Scottish Government Policy that all new build hospitals will be built with single en suite rooms.

Have any concerns been expressed

about single rooms?

While the majority of people tend to be in favour of single rooms some people do have some concerns. This is mostly around a fear of being isolated, not having other patients to look out for them and fear of not seeing staff so much. Such concerns will be addressed through the design of the building, including communal eating areas and spaces.

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Since the last newsletter in March we have seen the summer weather starting to appear along with an increase in tourists and seasonal workers visiting this beautiful part of the Scottish Highlands.

With this increase we have seen a rise in road-related incidents and I would ask everyone to stay alert and focused when out and about or driving on the roads.

There has also been a noticeable increase in incidents involving drink/drug driving in the Lochaber area and I would ask for your support in our mission to crack down on this behaviour by contacting us if you notice anything suspicious on our roads at any time of the day or night.

I would urge anyone who even considers driving a vehicle whilst under the influence of alcohol or drugs, prescribed or otherwise, to stop and really think of the consequences it will have for the safety of themselves and everyone else! #NOLIMITISSAFE

If any of you have any concerns that you wish to discuss with me, please do not hesitate to contact me via my police email address –

Ross.McCartney@scotland.pnn.police.uk.

As always if you wish to speak to police urgently then use 999, or 101 for a non-emergency.

Best wishes to all in the community and I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe summer.

Ross McCartney Police Sergeant Liaison Officer for Kilmallie Community Council Ross.McCartney@scotland.pnn.police.uk.

Twitter – ‘Lochaber&SkyePolice

Fort William Police Station BLAR MOR, Fort William PH33 7GA Tel. 101 for non-emergency

community policing

slower safer smilier We reported last issue that:

• a crossing at an appropriate place at the canal is not going to be possible

• a crossing at an appropriate place at the Co-op is only going to be possible with significant reduction in parking and relocation of the bus stop.

The option for Corpach KCC want to hear what the community thinks before confirming to Transport Scotland whether the layout is acceptable.

If you have difficulty crossing the road, if you manage or work in the shop or the pub, or if you live nearby, you might have views on what is desirable or acceptable.

Come along to our consultation 26th August 7:15pm Kilmallie Community Centre We hope that any reservations about the layout can be addressed in the interests of those who have difficulty crossing the road. If the layout is not acceptable, we may never see a crossing installed at Corpach.

Dear KCC

I read with anger and dismay that Transport Scotland can't see the nose on their own faces with regard to a much needed pedestrian crossing at the Banavie Swing Bridge. It angers me that they can be so short sighted, that it will take a fatality before something is done. It annoys me that motorists’ safety is being put before pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, canoeists and children's safety.

I moved here a year ago and it was one of the first things I noticed when I walked along the canal. Why no zebra crossings where the paths so obviously cross the road? A few years ago in my home town a new pedestrian crossing was installed at a "safe" point for drivers but not where pedestrians crossed the road. Within weeks a young girl had been struck by a car and killed. The crossing was subsequently moved and there have been no incidents since.

There is only one place a crossing can be put at the bridge and that is where the canal paths cross the road. Anything else will be a waste of time and money as they will not be used and at some point someone, probably a child of a tourist, will be killed.

There is no need for the stretch of road from the Blar Industrial Estate to Tomonie to be 40 miles an hour and there is no justification not to put in a proper crossing at the bridge. There are already signs informing drivers of a swing bridge ahead and cyclists crossing so how difficult is it for Transport Scotland to put signs up warning of Pedestrians Crossing and paint some white lines across the road. We don't need a Pelican Crossing, a Zebra with beacons will suffice as pedestrians still have right of way on any pedestrian crossing.

If Transport Scotland won't do it then maybe a few volunteers armed with paint brushes and whitewash could "guerrilla" install the crossings in the dead of night?

I urge the KCC not to give up the fight to get a crossing at both ends of the bridge installed with suitable and sufficient signage warning drivers there may be pedestrians crossing and to SLOW DOWN. We must not let someone die before action is taken.

Your sincerely Keiron Shatwell, Tomonie

Nice thought Kieron but please don’t try it - a guerrilla crossing could cause more

accidents than it saved and you might risk imprisonment. A zebra crossing could be dangerous without adequate sightlines and we think it

wouldn’t be allowed by Transport Scotland in any case. Kieron wrote again to query the sightlines at the canal bridge, and we also had an

interesting suggestion from Paul Biggin that it might be possible to modify the railings on the bridge to improve sightlines. However the rules state that the

sightlines must be measured from a fair way’s back from the kerb line which might scupper the idea.

We share your exasperation, frustration and ongoing real concern. Do let Transport Scotland know how you feel!

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Wildflower meadows under threat It might come as something as a surprise to learn that perhaps the most threatened habitat in the whole of Britain is the wildflower meadow. There has been a greater than 97% loss of wildflower meadows nationally, with an attendant reduction of floral diversity and the invertebrate species that depend on this, particularly pollinators such as bees.

The loss of flowers in the wider countryside has come about through many reasons, but primarily through agricultural improvement and changes in practice. Development has also played its part, particularly around settlements. We can rarely now enjoy fields ablaze with a rich mixture of colours, and flowers have become marginalised to neglected land, nature reserves and road verges.

As well as having important aesthetic value in their own right, wild flowers play an important part in ecosystems, providing food and shelter for many birds, animals and insects. Bees depend on the nectar they produce, and a lack of flowers has important economic implications in terms of the pollination of agricultural crops, as well as the production of honey by beekeepers. Lowland meadows, including those representing flower-rich neutral grassland types such as that found in pockets around Kilmallie, are a national UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Priority Habitat and also feature on the Scottish Biodiversity List.

Although we often consider that our area of Scotland is relatively wild and untouched, we have not been immune to the loss of flowers. Neglect and change of use of croft land has contributed to this, as has a widespread shift to using fields for sheep pasture and away from mixed farming, including cereal production. The most recent 2011 survey of flower-rich grassland sites within Lochaber showed that in the past 20 years there has been a 24% loss of previously surveyed sites and that 40% of other sites have since deteriorated to be in an unfavourable condition.

In Lochaber, sadly, there are no current protected areas such as Sites of Special Scientific Interest that have been specifically designated because of their lowland grasslands. Restoration of wildflower meadows is both a Highland and Lochaber Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) priority. This was reinforced in the recent (2017) revision of the Living Lochaber LBAP document. Only one ‘new’ wildflower meadow has been created publicly under the Coronation Meadow scheme by Forestry Commission Scotland at Drimnin.

The species to be found in a typical meadow depend on the soil conditions, the degree of moisture and underlying geology. The more basic the soil, generally the more diverse the flora. So-called upland hay meadows, relics of which can be found in this area, often contain spectacular species such as wood anemone, melancholy thistle and globeflower. Orchids are a good indicator of

unimproved grassland, with some good, showy species such as greater butterfly orchid, northern marsh orchid and even common spotted orchid found locally. Yellow rattle is another good indicator of unimproved pastures. This requires relatively poor soils, and depends on a supply of nutrients from grasses, which it parasitises, leading to the suppression of some more vigorous species. Neutral fields may also contain knapweed, oxeye daisy and sorrel, while more acidic pastures often have a variety of eyebright species, devil’s-bit scabious and tormentil. Many arable ‘weeds’ such as poppies and the increasingly rare cornflower only thrive in disturbed land that is not subjected to application of excess fertiliser or weedkiller.

Fortunately, around Kilmallie we still have some nice areas of wildflowers. Mary Elliott and others have worked hard to preserve the road verges along the A697, which have a spectacular display of orchids in early June. The banks of the canal are also a fantastic refuge for wild flowers, with the variety of species increased by lime-rich areas arising from stone used in the canal construction. We also have several small patches of unimproved grassland, largely as a consequence of crofts falling into disuse. Some contain melancholy thistle and, in damper areas, produce spectacular displays of meadowsweet and marsh marigold.

A few years ago, a very rare orchid, the Irish lady’s-tresses, was discovered near Annat, although this site has since disappeared through the ill-placement of cattle feeders and the construction of a hydro track.

Within the middle of Banavie, the field adjacent to the rugby club is a fine example of lowland unimproved neutral grassland, containing a wealth of orchids, knapweed and other plants such as yellow rattle. Sadly, this is scrubbing over, and needs some TLC in order to conserve it. Given that meadows are such a rare resource it would be nice to think that we could cherish and preserve any remaining patches within our community. There is no better time than early summer to enjoy our local wild flowers, and the same pleasure should be available to future generations.

Jon Mercer Glenloy Wildlife

wild about kilmallie

Clockwise from top: melancholy thistle, globeflower clump, and butterfly orchid

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05/06/18 18/02255/FUL Erection of extension to chalet, Chalet No 1, Everwood, Glenloy

01/06/18 18/02341/FUL Proposed alterations & extension, Long Acres Banavie

01/06/18 18/02366/FUL Erection of house, Taormina Banavie

29/05/18 18/02443/FUL Alterations and extension, 2 Arkavie Cottage Banavie

23/05/18 18/02172/FUL

Revised positioning of pontoon access gangway for the purposes of improving alignment of the access and also allowing effluent pump off direct from boats to a shore based holding tank; all connected with previous Planning Permission 16/04706/FUL for construction of a car park, slipway and change of use of canal buildings. North Of Pier Corpach

23/05/18 18/02352/SCRE Mixed use masterplan comprising 200-250 residential units, commercial, hospital & community use Blar Mhor

17/05/18 18/02168/PNO Prior Notification for Farm-related Building Works (Non-residential) Land 250M SE Of Cruive Cottage Camaghael

16/05/18 18/02242/FUL Erection of boiler house building (retrospective), Sundolitt Ltd Unit 9 Annat Point Industrial Estate Corpach

04/05/18 18/01971/FUL Erection of house, Plots 5 Campbell Road Banavie

23/04/18 18/01823/PAN Proposed development includes residential (approx 200 units), commercial, hospital & community use, the site also includes peat bog & habitat area & landscaped areas, Land 400M NE Of Blar Mhor Industrial Estate

29/03/18 18/01600/PAN Extension to quarry to incorporate revised working and progressive restoration, Banavie Quarry

19/03/18 18/01265/FUL Erect extension, 47 Drumfada Terrace, Corpach

plans afoot Here are the local applications that we’ve noticed on the Weekly Lists in the last three months, up to 10/06/18. Some may already have been determined.

For further information about Weekly Planning Lists, see the Sept 2014 edition of Kilmallie Community News. If you would like to receive weekly lists by email, please contact KCC Secretary.

PIP = Permission in Principle FUL = Full Application LBC = Listed Building Consent PNO = Prior Notification OHL = Overhead Electricity Line ADV = Advertisement MSC = Matters Specified in Conditions (ie typically follow-up details to a permission already granted)

welcome action on noise

KCC has received news from Simon Hindson in Highland Council’s Planning Department regarding progress in relation to action about reducing the noise nuisance from Annat. Following KCC’s meeting in April with Planning and Environmental Health, on 7th May Highland Council served a Breach of Condition Notice on Boyd

Brothers (Haulage) Ltd in relation to working outwith their permitted operational hours. They were given until Monday 11 June 2018 to comply with the terms of the notice. The terms of the notice require them to comply with the terms of their planning permission and specifically stop: • all works and uses of the jetty

between 2200 and 0600 Monday to Saturday inclusive of loading and unloading of vessels and docking of vessels; and

• all works and uses of the jetty between 2200 on a Saturday and 0600 on a Monday inclusive of loading and unloading of vessels and docking of vessels.

If works and uses of the jetty continue outwith the permitted hours please make a record of these and provide them to Simon Hindson (contact details below) for additional evidence which may be used in any further enforcement action which may be taken forward by the Council. Please also do let KCC know if things have improved or not as a result of this action. Simon Hindson, Principal Planner Highland Council Town House High Street Inverness, IV1 1JJ Telephone: 01463 785047 E-mail: simon.hindson@highland.gov.uk

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page 33 focus on folk

Since March this year I have been the new Postmistress – or Post Office Team Leader - in Corpach Post Office. I was pleased to be asked by KCC to introduce myself to the local community as, although I live in Hillview Drive, there will be people who are meeting me for the first time across the PO counter.

I've been in Lochaber since I was 8 years old. We were living in Aultbea when my mum got a job in the (then) Pulp Mill's accounting department so we moved down to Caol. I went to Caol Primary School where I remember Mrs MacIntyre being a kind and excellent teacher. Then to Lochaber High School and when I left, I decided to go into caring. I took a YTS course and worked in local homes for the elderly, a nursery and as a home help. I'm definitely a “people person” so always liked working to provide some form of service to people. In between my jobs I got married to Neil, who is a generator engineer, and we had our three boys, Daniel (now 24) Cameron (22) and the only one left at school is Ewan who is 16.

In 2008 I started work in a local bookmaker’s shop. To work for a bookie they need to be assured that you're not a gambler yourself! I could safely tell them that I only played bingo occasionally and bought a lottery ticket. There was a lot to learn about finances and betting compliance; I was working with a small, friendly and stable team and stayed there for 10 years. However, I had to work evenings and weekends so, when the job in Corpach Post Office became vacant when Katie retired, I decided to apply… and here I am. It has been a steep learning curve, learning the financial compliance and regulations and processes specific to the Post Office – but I was used to that responsibility and I'm now enjoying working with people as PO customers.

Now that I'm not working unsocial hours I find I have more opportunity to relax at home. I enjoy listening to music; the 80's is my favourite musical era and Neil and I go to tribute bands and music festivals. This year we're off with a group of friends to Belladrum and Rewind, which will be great. I also plan to take up zumba and yoga now that I have the time, and to walk the dog more. We like to holiday in Spain – not to sit on a beach but to wander around the old town and to sit on pavement cafes socialising and people-watching, my favourite pastime.

For the future I can see Post Offices being used more as so much banking activity can be done there. Corpach Post Office is generally busy; we get a lot of parcel returns from internet shopping and this seems set to increase as more people shop online. I'm also very glad that I will have 9 months to get fully up to speed before the Christmas rush!

Hazel Young

Some occupations play a pivotal role in a community - postmaster or postmistress is certainly one of them. When so many communities have lost their post offices over the years, we are very lucky to

still have one in Corpach. In this issue, Hazel Young introduces herself as our new postmistress.

We are organising Children's Holiday Clubs for children aged 4-8 at Lochaber Rural Education Trust on the following dates:- Tues. 17th, Wed. 18th & Thurs. 19th July, 10am - 2pm Tues. 7th, Wed. 8th & Thurs. 9th August, 10am - 2pm Tues. 23rd, Wed. 24th & Thurs. 25th October, 10am-2pm The Club costs £12 per child per day and children must be booked in. Children to bring a spare set of clothes and a packed lunch. For more details and to book a place contact Linda on 01397 700800 Lochaber Rural Education Trust (SC032111)

Children’s Holiday Clubs

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page 34 page 3 kilmallie community

news There’s apparently a sound scientific reason for why time seems to pass more quickly as you get older. The time available for all the planning, writing, gathering, editing and desk top publishing certainly seems to get shorter and shorter every issue. If there are any younger folk amongst the community who’d like to help, it might help stretch out our perception of time a bit! Mind you this issue is huge - 36 pages - because there’s just so much going on to tell you about.

Thanks as always to everyone who’s helped with this issue, the contributors, the delivery teams and of course our sponsors., without whom there would be no newsletter at all now that our funding from Highland Council has been cut. We are very grateful to you all.

Your newsletter team: Christine Hutchison 772252 Jan MacLugash 772383 Sue Chadney Mandy Ketchin Email us at newsletter@kilmallie.org.uk

Views expressed in this newsletter are

not necessarily the views of the newsletter team or of

Kilmallie Community Council.

Deadline for copy for next issue

25th August, for publication 18th September.

KILMALLIE COMMUNITY COUNCIL

Members of the public are most welcome at all our meetings. Meetings are currently held at 7:15pm in Kilmallie Community Centre on the 4th Monday of every month excluding July and December. Please check with the Secretary in case of changes.

Chair Christine Hutchison chairman@kilmallie.org.uk Secretary Russell Leaper Canal House, Banavie, PH33 7LY secretary@kilmallie.org.uk Treasurer Jan MacLugash Salen, Banavie PH33 7LY treasurer@kilmallie.org.uk Members Mandy Ketchin Carol Anne Campbell Jim Ramsay

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KCC meetings

the place to share your ideas and concerns

about local issues - everyone welcome

Ordinary meetings all at 7:15pm at Kilmallie Community Centre

unless otherwise noted

Monday 25 June

AGM 7:15pm Ordinary meeting 7:30pm

Highland Council will be presenting their masterplan for the Blar including proposals for a major new housing

development. Maimie Thompson of NHS will also be updating us

about progress with the new Belford Hospital on the Blar. Come along to ask your questions

Monday 27 August

Come and share your views about options for a new pedestrian crossing at Corpach.

Monday 24 September

Monday 22 October

(Please check with Secretary in case of any last minute

changes or cancellations),

Remember you don’t have to wait for a regular meeting if there is something urgent that you think needs to be

discussed. If at least 20 people (resident and eligible to vote)

request a special meeting, we are obliged to convene one within 14 days.

Even if less than 20 people request a special meeting, we would always try to accommodate one if urgent and

practicable.

Minutes are posted on the noticeboards

at Banavie and Corpach. If you would like to be added to our distribution list to receive copies of minutes via email, please contact the

secretary secretary@kilmallie.org.uk

What is your company name? Locheilnet CIC Where are you located? Our “Head quarters” are in Fassfern, Kinlocheil.

What does your company do? Locheilnet brings affordable superfast internet to the communities around Loch Eil, Glenfinnan and the west side of Loch Linnhe on one side, and the communities between Banavie and the wider Achnacarry/Clunes/Bunarkaig area on the other. We recently added Kilmalieu, Tulloch and Fersit to that list.

How long has your company been operating? The pilot was set up at the beginning of 2013 followed by the full-size roll-out in September later that year. We have not looked back since and are now happily supplying over 400 customers with our service. How many people do you employ locally? 1 full time project manager, 4 contractors (network management, installs, repairs, book keeping services). We also have several dedicated volunteers who help with the hands-on bits of the infrastructure installations and during emergencies, you know... when weather or power outages throw a spanner in the works! What do you like best about being/living in Kilmallie? The beauty of the area combined with the friendliness of the community members and the bonus of still being within a short distance of all amenities and more beautiful scenery. The abundance of trees and hillocks means that we have to apply a lot of creative thinking in order to connect those hard to reach areas, but that makes it even more rewarding.

Chris Pellow

focus on business

We’re very grateful to Chris Pellow and Locheilnet

for becoming the newsletter’s latest generous

sponsor. We’re immensely proud to have such a

flourishing community company in Kilmallie, and

we’re in awe of what Chris and her team have achieved, demonstrating the amazing potential of

community enterprise.

Some of us might be planning to travel to exotic places this summer, but sometimes it’s just as delightful to focus in very close on our own local area.

One fine evening in the first week of June, a small expotition set out to see how many species of wildflower were in bloom along a short length of canal towpath between Banavie Basin and Mount Alexander. It wasn’t scientific. No idea what type of thrissle it was, maybe there were more than two types of buttercup, and one at least was a garden escapee.

But an amazing 31 different flowers were blossoming in that very narrow strip, only 500 yards long. We’ve made a roll call of them in the snippets down the side of the pages of this newsletter.

It’s fascinating to notice the flowers change with the habitat even over just a few feet as you turn off onto the path to go down under the Mount Alexander aqueduct.

And it was but a brief snapshot in time - the wood sorrel and primroses of spring were just wistful memories. All but one dandelion had moved on, and even the delicately beautiful cuckooflower seemed to have disappeared without trace after providing a spectacular show only a week before. In another week, the buds, and petals and seeds will all have changed again. If you walked along the canal every single day, there would always be something new to notice and enjoy. And as wildflower meadows decrease in number (see page 32) verges like this become ever more important as wildlife corridors.

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Thanks as always to Tony Whitelocke for giving us this crossword.

kilmallie community council

When we meet at the shops or in the street the weather usually comes up early in the conversation - but haven’t we been spoilt recently. The gardeners probably won’t agree but, even as I write, we seem to be in for another mainly dry week. I can’t remember such a hot, dry spell in recent years but encourage those who keep a diary to correct me!

We are still trying to find a solution to our Slower Safer Smilier campaign, particularly to establish a pedestrian crossing near the shop in Corpach and aim to arrange a consultation soon at which Transport Scotland will be represented.

Noise from Corpach Harbour/Industrial Estate is being monitored by noise meters sited in the homes of three local residents. By the time you read this the information may be collected and assessed, hopefully for our next Community Council meeting.

Some members of our community are trying to find a better route to access Banavie War Memorial – scrub cutting has been an exhausting task in this weather! We are hopeful that the memorial will also be cleaned and names repainted before Remembrance Sunday.

From our Community Council meeting in April you will be aware of the possibility of gas being landed and stored at Corpach for use in the new alloy wheels plant. Close to our print deadline I discovered that research is being conducted for SGN (Scotia Gas Network, the gas network in Scotland) which has been requested by the Scottish Government to ascertain demand for a gas supply in the greater Fort William area. Here is the lengthy link:

https://www.surveygizmo.eu/s3/90080444/SGN-Local-residents-online-survey

At the time of writing, I am afraid that I do not know when the survey closes.

We are also hearing that the Highland Council will likely be running public workshops on the Fort William 2040 Masterplan on Monday 20th August. I don’t know the venue yet but can confirm that part of Kilmallie is included in the area. You need to watch for publicity.

Our next Community Council meeting on 25th June at 7:15pm will be the AGM, followed by our usual business meeting. I am pleased to intimate that Maimie Thompson, Head of PR and Engagement at NHS Highland will update us on the Lochaber Health and Social Care Redesign, including the New Belford Hospital. Please come to listen and ask questions; it should be interesting. You will see the most recent Q&As on the project on page 6 of this paper. I hope you have a pleasant summer!

Christine Hutchison, Chair chairman@kilmallie.org.uk

“some straight, some cryptic, some easy, some not so easy”

dai

sy

Across

1 Confused (7)

4 Material found in the den. Impossible! (5)

7 This Ben is nearby (5)

9 Taxing (7)

10 Rob duck and then stir it up and go with dandelion (7)

11 Condescend (5)

12 Celsius or Fahrenheit (6)

14 Red Fay, tatty, worn (6)

18 Peach or toast. Take your pick! (5)

20 Our mist rearranged for holidays (7)

22 Cup all over confused chat - Hurry up! (5,2)

23 Male duck was an old comedian (5)

24 Had (5)

25 SS react about Marilyn Monroe - she was one(7)

Down

1 Top or bottom. You can sleep in either (4,3)

2 Excitement may give you high temperature (5)

3 Dr Who’s enduring enemies (6)

4 He fought the big man - and won (5)

5 Makes a din when done this way (7)

6 This girl will nag me when at sea (5)

8 Votes for kitchen equipment (5)

13 Elating about setting agent (7)

15 Do run about and end up circular (5)

16 They might be in distress (7)

17 Is it a paradise? (6)

18 Manly (5)

19 It will eat your plants (5)

21 Game I mismanaged. What a picture (5)

Answers to these puzzles are on the website www.kilmallie.org.uk (follow the link on right hand side of the homepage) and will also be published in the next issue of the newsletter for people without internet access.

Answers to last issue’s crossword: Across: 1 POTHOLE, 4 BOOST , 7 MEGAN, 9 SAUSAGE, 10 KARAOKE, 11 TAGUS, 12 NAPLES, 14 BEDSIT, 18 SUSAN, 20 MUG SHOT, 22 ELM TREE, 23 RABBI, 24 LUNCH, 25 EQUATES Down: 1 PUMPKIN, 2 TIGER, 3 EASTER, 4 BLUNT, 5 ORANGES, 6 TRESS, 8 NOOSE, 13 POSTMAN, 15 EAGER, 16 TATTIES, 17 IMPEDE, 18 STEAL, 19 NORTH., 21 HABIT

for better or worse? Whatever you feel about further industrialisation and urbanisation of our area, it is likely that the proposed alloy wheel factory adjacent to the aluminium plant will bring substantial changes to Kilmallie.

Most new factories are sited close to their potential work force. However, in this case the workers would all be new to the area and they and their families would need housing and associated infrastructure including schools, transport and medical facilities.

This raises big challenges for future planning and particularly for cash-strapped Highland Council.

The developer has been given planning permission, so it is now their decision whether to go ahead with the factory or not. But the prior investment in infrastructure to support the coming work force will have to come from public funds. It is hard to justify spending public money until new people actually come to the area, particularly in such difficult and uncertain times for the economy, but on the other hand there will be serious problems if extra facilities are not in place if or when they arrive.

Highland Council has recently been consulting about its proposals for large housing developments on land to the east and north of the Police Station on the Blar Mor. The new Highland Wide Local Development Plan contains aspirations for such developments to avoid the planning mistakes of the past. In particular, it lists six qualities of

successful places for new developments; they should be distinctive, safe and pleasant, easy to get around, welcoming, adaptable, and resource-efficient.

According to the Plan, new developments should be designed to make a positive contribution to the architectural and visual quality of the place in which they are located, should focus on the quality of places and living environments for pedestrians rather than movement of vehicles, and have regard to the historic pattern of development and landscape in the locality.

Whilst aspects of a development such as visual impact can be subjective, the environmental aspects are more straightforward to assess. No development on the Blar could ever be considered resource-efficient, since it has been estimated that the destruction of peat on the 40 hectare site could release as much carbon dioxide as heating all the homes in Kilmallie for ten years. This will not be an issue if the development is limited to areas where the peat has already been disturbed, but any further disturbance of peat would mean housing had a large environmental footprint.

Similarly, the lack of infrastructure and facilities around the Blar would mean it will be difficult to encourage people to walk rather than use their cars.

We all have different opinions, but it is clear that the Highland Council proposals represent a major change to the size and character of our area. We all need to input into the process to make sure that the changes which come to our community are positive.

Russell Leaper, Secretary

Answers to last issue’s Placenames Quiz Part 2

FORFAR, GALASHIELS, HADDINGTON, INVERARAY, KEITH, KIRKWALL, LAIRG, LAUDER, LAURENCEKIRK,

MACDUFF, MELROSE, OLDMELDRUM, PAISLEY, PORTSOY, SALEN, STIRLING, STORNOWAY, TONGUE, TORRIDON, ULLAPOOL, WALLS,

WHITHORN

picture quiz no 18

Where in Kilmallie?

Answer to last issue’s Picture Quiz No 17 The hydro electric scheme at Fassfern

Issue No 61, June 2018 delivered free to every address in Kilmallie

in this issue

KCC from the chair – p2

for better or worse - p2

KCC meetings – p3

action on noise - p4

plans afoot - p4

slower, safer, smilier - p5

community policing - p5

new Belford Q&A - p6

missives from MSP- p7

Councillors’ Corner - p8

Banavie quarry - p9-11

Blar masterplan - p12-13

in memory - p12

Liberty Q&A - p14-17

2040 vision p18-19

High Notes - p20

Banavie School News - p21

Canal News - p22

Community Centre - p23

wind loads - p24

Corpach in Colour - p24

Rugby Club - p25

Shinty Club - p25

Corpach Woods - p26

Xmas lights - p26

summer strolls - p27

art lochaber - p27

carbon papers - p28-29

CREEL - p29

green fingers - p30

letters - p30

thig an t’earrach - p31

wild about Kilmallie - p32

focus on folk - p33

Holiday Clubs - p33

focus on business- p34

Puzzles from Pithean - p35

Sponsors - p36

side snippets

see page 34

BOYD BROTHERS (HAULAGE) LTD

CLYDEBoyd Fort William Ltd

FORT WILLIAM

TYRE SERVICES

become a sponsor and see your logo here too? A huge thank you to all the businesses below for sponsoring the newsletter.

Our newsletter costs this year have been met by their sponsorship donations, from KCC’s limited funds, from a grant from Lochaber Housing Association, from donations from the community and, most of all, in kind from all our many volunteers. We rely on the contributions from our business community for the cost of producing and

distributing this free newsletter to every address in our area. We welcome sponsorship from all businesses located in Kilmallie, or with principal key personnel resident in Kilmallie. If you would like to see your name or

logo in print supporting your community newsletter, please join with our current sponsors. All donations, big or small, are hugely appreciated.

Please contact us at treasurer@kilmallie.org.uk for details.

fasten your seatbelts we’re about to take off

We are starting to see tangible indications of just some of the dramatic changes that could be taking place in Kilmallie soon. In this issue we bring you news of a substantial housing

development on the Blar, an update about plans for the new Belford, sight of Highland Council’s 2040 vision which includes gas storage and an expanded deep water port at

Corpach, a summary of Liberty’s responses to community’s questions, some strategic and Breedon’s proposals for quarry expansion. A lot to look at and think about!