Armed Forces Day marked

Today Aberdeenshire Council marked Armed Forces Day with a parade and flag-raising ceremony at our Woodhill House headquarters.

Councillors attended along with veterans to hear speeches by Provost Bill Howatson, and lord lieutenants representing the Queen, from Aberdeenshire, Kincardineshire, and Banffshire. However it was so warm that at least three people fainted during the ceremony.

There will be a parade on 30 June in Aberdeen when serving military men and women, veteran associations, cadet and youth organisations accompanied by local pipe bands march down Union Street. The parade leaves Albyn Place at 11am marching the length of Union Street before finishing at the Castlegate.

This year’s events are especially poignant, as they coincide with the ending of World War One 100 years ago.

A90 anti-skid surface replaced

Good to see the new road surface on the northbound A90 carriageway at Bridge of Muchalls.

The anti-skid surface was badly rutted and sorely needed replacing. I remember when it was laid after there had been a series of accidents on the Bends, some fatal. Chevrons and other signs were erected at the time.

Meanwhile I see work is well under way dropping the kerbs at the former ICI petrol station and Little Chef at Newtonhill. Hopefully it hasn’t inconvenienced the car sales or contractor’s staff (though I understand Lambert’s is no longer in operation).

Flooding designation for Portlethen

The Scottish Environment Protect Agency (SEPA) is reviewing the national flood risk assessment, and there is one change which affects parts of Portlethen.

SEPA’s proposals say Portlethen is being proposed as “a new Potentially Vulnerable Area (PVA) due to the risk of river and surface water flooding to homes and businesses. A relatively small number of properties suffered from flooding in the past. However, the potential for widespread flooding needs to be looked at in detail.”

Flooding has been reported in 2000, 2006, 2012, 2013 and 2015.

New areas are being added to the assessment because of an improved understanding of risk or because of future risk due to climate change.

Scottish Ministers will formally designate the PVAs and publish the outcome in December.

Insurance companies use such information when calculating risk.

You can read more by going to Item 12, page 461 on the following link: http://committees.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees.aspx

AWPR sections about to open

The Aberdeen bypass is to be fully open by late autumn, with the first sections open to traffic in the next few weeks.
That was the news when I had a meeting with Transport Scotland, the construction joint venture (the CJV), and the assistant managing agent for the project at Woodhill House.
They are still building the new bridge over the Don but otherwise the project is in the final stages of construction.
The first section to open to traffic will be from Goval to Blackdog, which “is not far away from completion and will be in the next few weeks”. The next section will be Blackdog to Tipperty, then Craibstone to Stonehaven/Charleston.   The last section to open will be Craibstone to Goval over the Don.
Only 60,000 tonnes of surfacing still has to be laid out of a total of 550,000 tonnes. When completed there will be 58km of main road, 40km of side roads, and 30km of access roads.
Some 1.4million trees will have been planted when the project is completed.
There will a fun day on Saturday 8 September at the Dee crossing with a day for cyclists on the Sunday. There is more information about that at https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/awpr-gonortheast-campaign-launched-in-run-up-to-completion/
I asked a number of questions about local issues:
• The traffic lights heading on to Wellington Road northbound from the A90 at Charleston will be rephased. There can be long tailbacks on to the A90 currently.
• A permanent safety barrier will be installed alongside the U63K where is goes under the AWPR south of Kirkton of Maryculter. This will replace the temporary barrier.
• SUDs ponds would be able to cope with Storm Frank situations.
• Community councils have been invited to a briefing on progress next week.
• The AWPR team are baffled by pollution on the Crynoch Burn, and say it does not come from their site. They have been working with SEPA and they “struggle to understand” where it comes from.
• Land which had been required for the construction of the road is now being returned to landowners.
• Construction sites are now winding down.

Country roads to close

The Causey Mounth (the C34K) is to be closed for 14 days north of Hillside School while network work is carried out. The closure lasts from Monday 25 June at 8am to Sunday 8 July at 5pm.
This work is overlapped by a closure of the U58K at Duff’s Hill from Monday 2 July at 8am to Sunday 22 July at 5pm.
Crucially emergency, pedestrian and vehicular access to affected properties is to be maintained whenever possible. However the works will be completed in two phases as the U58K will not be started until the C34K is complete.
I don’t have any further details from the council’s roads service.

Waste proposals unfair

Councillors today agreed to a public consultation in September on a new waste strategy for Aberdeenshire in an effort to increase our 43% recycling rate.
However the strategy includes axing the Saturday morning garden waste collection service in Newtonhill and St Cyrus while rolling it out to 11 other communities across the North East.
I spoke out strongly against this and I hope the villagers will take part in the consultation to prove me right! The reason given by officers for the change is that Newtonhill is too near the Portlethen recycling centre. Well, there is not a lot we can do about that.
It strikes me as counter-intuitive to close the service when the council is wanting to divert more rubbish from landfill. Landfill costs the council £118/tonne while recycling in general costs £29/tonne.
There are also proposals to open Portlethen recycling centre five days a week from 9.30am to 4.30pm while other centres will open seven days a week. The reason for that is Portlethen is close to the recycling centre at Redcloak, Stonehaven.
I wasn’t happy with that either when I spoke at the infrastructure services committee. I felt that Newtonhill and Portlethen were being disadvantaged by geography.
Overall the central difference in the strategy being proposed by officers is that we all receive another recycling bin, this time for paper and cardboard. There will be a choice of how often the three bins are emptied. The frequency of emptying the landfill bin could be reduced. The food waste bin will still be emptied every week. More later.
I’ll post a reminder about the public consultation when it goes live in the autumn.

Council to pay for festive lights electricity

The cost of electricity to power festive lighting in local communities will continue to be covered by Aberdeenshire Council, after a new approach was agreed by councillors.
Members of the Infrastructure Services Committee (including me) gave the go-ahead to a new policy aimed at ensuring a reasonable, consistent and safe approach to requests from community groups.
However councillors decided not to take up the option of charging for electricity, as set out in the officers’ report. The cost to the council will be about £11,000 a year, which should reduce in time as more and more lights change to LED.
This was something that was never going to find favour among councillors.
Hanging baskets, banners and bunting are also covered by the new rules, as well as attachments to street lighting columns, such as signs.
We also agreed that the council would continue to carry out structural inspections of lamp posts. Officers had suggested that communities could take over that responsibility where they wished to erect festive lights.

Housing plan the hot topic

Well over an hour was spent last night discussing the planning application for houses to the south of Newtonhill.
More than 30 people attended the annual general meeting of Newtonhill, Muchalls and Cammachmore Community Council, with the housing being the main topic. Villagers set out their concerns, as did residents from Muchalls. Comments have to be lodged with Aberdeenshire Council by Thursday 28 June. The case reference is APP/2018/1213, and you can find out more at https://upa.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?keyVal=P96OENCAM3C00&activeTab=summary
As well as me and Cllr Evison as local councillors, two Stonehaven ward councillors attended to hear the views. They were Cllrs Dickinson and Wallace.
Three residents were elected on to the community council – Peter Flockhart, George Ewing, and Laura Ironside. However there still are two vacancies for Newtonhill, two for Cammachmore, and one for Muchalls. Anyone interested should contact the community council (I’ll happy pass on further details if you contact me.)
Michael Morgan remains as chairman, Alison Daniels is vice-chairwoman, Edith Stephen remains secretary, and George Ewing becomes treasurer (replacing Eric Hargreaves who has stepped down).
Among the many other topics discussed were:
• Bullying and vandalism in Newtonhill, thought to be caused by a small group of youngsters.
• Re-opening the A90 underpass for pedestrians.
• Thoughtless parking at the primary school.
• The weekly garden waste collection at the Bettridge.
• The opening date for the Aberdeen bypass.
• Slow progress with the new play equipment at the Newtonhill Park.
• The bids for the next Aberdeenshire Local Development Plan at Newtonhill, Muchalls and Cammachmore.
The next meeting will be on Wednesday 22 August at 7.30pm in the Skateraw Hall.
As a footnote, at the end of the meeting I had to sign a bank document as I was still an authorised signatory for the community council. It is 11 years since I stepped down as chairman! Sorted.

Development bids in spotlight

Development bids were the discussed in depth at tonight’s North Kincardine Rural Community Council meeting in Lairhillock School.
 
Around 600 bids have been lodged with Aberdeenshire Council to allocate land for housing or industry in the next Local Development Plan. Locally the biggest bid is for development at Banchory Devenick, which has sparked local opposition.
 
Tomorrow community council representatives will be meeting Aberdeenshire Council’s Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee to discuss the local bids. However this is a long process and in due course there will be an opportunity for the public to comment.
 
Other topics discussed included local schools, plans to mark the impending opening of the Aberdeen bypass, planning applications, Portlethen and District Men’s Shed (now open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 10am to 1pm), estate shooting, verge trimming, particularly around the South Deeside Road.
 
It was also the community council’s annual general meeting, with two new members being co-opted: Phil Allan and Graham Norrie. Christopher Hakkennes and Ben Talter also became associate members. The officer bearers all stayed in post.

Newtonhill faces losing garden waste service

Yesterday the postman brought me the near-700 page report for Thursday’s infrastructure services committee. On page 526 council officers are recommending axing Newtonhill’s weekly garden waste service, which is provided for four hours by a bin lorry in the Coastal Park.
Meanwhile officers recommend that six communities are added to the list of garden waste collection points, to make a total of 11.
I agree that the scheme should be widened so that more green waste is collected and recycled as compost.
But I do not agree that Newtonhill and St Cyrus should be dropped, as recommended. And that is what I will be arguing. It is counter-intuitive.
Officers say that Newtonhill and St Cyrus do not meet new criteria is that settlements which receive the service have more than 400 domestic properties and are more than seven miles from a recycling centre. In our case that’s Badentoy – which is 3.6 miles from Newtonhill. But why should Newtonhill be punished because we happen to be relatively close to Portlethen?
The service is provided in the village on Saturday mornings during the summer and is well supported. There is nearly always someone at the bin lorry. You would not believe the volume of clippings that came out of a Fiat 500’s boot yesterday!
The change is part of a wider report on how our rubbish is collected so that the 43% recycling rate in increased. Too much recyclable material is going to landfill. The recommendation is that this can be achieved by providing residents with a smaller landfill bin which would be emptied less often. Meanwhile paper/cardboard would be collected separately from other recyclable materials such as plastics, metals (including cans), and cartons.
At this stage councillors are being asked to agree that in September there is a public consultation on the proposed waste strategy including whether there is a three-week or four-week cycle of kerbside collection services. Food waste would still be collected every week.
The report also recommends that the opening hours and service for all 13 recycling centres would be standardised, with the exception of Alford and Portlethen. The opening hours at both would be 9.30am until 4.30pm Thursday to Monday. Other recycling centres such as Stonehaven would be open seven days a week from 9am to 5pm, with a Tuesday opening until 8pm from April to October. Officers say that Alford and Portlethen do not justify the longer opening hours because of either the close proximity of other recycling centres or size of the population.
To sum up, I hope that residents will take part in the consultation (should councillors agree on Thursday) to make their views known.
If you wish to read the report, click on this link and go to Item 14 on the agenda: http://committees.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees.aspx?commid=495&meetid=19015