I have just been told that the C13K Portlethen to Netherley road will be closed for a day from 7am to 7pm on Saturday 3 February.
The reason is that Diona Construction will be “carrying out a road crossing” at the Bourtreebush junction with the A90. This means they are digging a trench across the road for some reason. Emergency and pedestrian access is to be maintained.
Newtonhill, Muchalls and Cammachmore Community Council tonight. A lot of meaty topics discussed.
The meeting was updated about progress with the playpark project, the potential to open the A90 underpass to pedestrians, the refusal of planning permission for a 12 metre high workshop at West Monduff, a meeting with Barratts over their housing masterplan, the forthcoming local development plan, bus timetable changes, local paths, finding out how residents would like to improve our community, and many more issues.
Mark Whitelocks, the managing director of Stagecoach in the North East, has offered to come to a future community council meeting.
A new member was co-opted on to the council for Newtonhill: George Ewing. There still are vacancies in Cammachmore and Newtonhill.
The next meeting – in the Skateraw Hall – will be on 21 February. Come along! It was also agreed that the annual general meeting will be held on Wednesday 20 June.
The B979 Netherley Road is possibly closing this weekend at its junction with the A90. This closure is necessary to allow the contractor to realign the A90 northbound slip roads and carry out surfacing works.
Details can be found at https://transportscotland-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/awpr-weekend-closure-for-b979-at-stonehaven-1
I’m delighted to hear that Portlethen Community Ambulance’s recent application for funding from Aviva Community Fund has been successful. They received news yesterday morning that they were successful in securing £4500 towards the cost of purchasing a new vehicle.
More than 800 deserving projects made it into the final, with more than 550 projects awarded grants between £1,000 and £25,000.
And today I heard that Newtonhill Common Good Fund has agreed to donate £1500.
The cost of the vehicle, I hear, is £24,000.
There is more information at http://portlethen-ambulance.co.uk/ if you can help, either in fund-raising or helping with the group, such as being a volunteer driver.
The deadline for an Aberdeenshire survey aimed at finding out what it is like living with a physical disability is 9 February.
The results will be used in planning, developing and delivering services for disabled people across Aberdeenshire. More details at https://online.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/apps/news/release.aspx?newsid=4879
Tough decisions ahead. Aberdeenshire Council has to find £20m to balance the books over the next year. The Scottish Government’s draft budget means that we will continue to be the third lowest funded council in Scotland.
On 8 February councillors will need to agree a budget to balance the books. The council will receive less income, not only from the cuts to our grant settlement from the Scottish Government but also from a drop in planning fees, for example, as a result of the down-turn in the Aberdeenshire economy.
To add to the challenge the Scottish Government has lifted the public sector pay cap but is not providing any additional funding to local government to meet the cost of this policy. The Unison, Unite and the GMB unions have now submitted a claim for a 6.5% pay rise.
Preparing a balanced budget in these circumstances is a real and growing challenge. We are having to look closely at everything the council does and possibly make decisions we would rather not take.
One option is to increase council tax, with a 1% increase generating £1.3m. The Scottish Government settlement for local authorities makes the assumption that all councils will increase council tax by 3% and they have reduced the allocation to local government accordingly.
It is not an easy time for local government and certainly not an easy time for Aberdeenshire.
Councillors will base decisions on our 11 priorities – drawn up after public consultation – so that we can provide the best possible services in trying circumstances for our communities.
In a question-and-answer session in the Scottish Parliament this afternoon, despite pressure from North East MSP Mike Rumbles, the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy refused to give a date for when the £745 million AWPR project would be open to traffic.
Mr Rumbles specifically asked the Cabinet Secretary “what month will the AWPR be open to traffic?” However, in spite of claiming that the collapse of Carillion did not necessitate a delay to the contract, the Cabinet Secretary could not give a specific date that the project would be completed.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Rumbles said: “Time and time again the Cabinet Secretary has said that the AWPR will be completed this winter. Well the spring is only six weeks away and today he failed to confirm when it will be finished.
“The Scottish Government is clearly hedging its bets and preparing for a delay to the project. If that is indeed the case, people and businesses in the North East, especially those who could be negatively impacted, deserve to know how much longer they will have to wait.”
An eventful Kincardine and Mearns Area Committee today. Here are some of the topics we discussed, ranging from grants to planning applications and school rolls.
Newtonhill Community Hall Association is being given a grant of £2000 for a new server and power supply for the Bettridge Centre. The total cost is £4100.
Newtonhill Out of School Club was awarded a grant of £725.94 to purchase chairs and a trolley, replacing the current chairs which are in a poor condition. Total cost will be £1200.
Solstice Nurseries is being awarded £5000 towards the £80,000 cost of a garage, storage space, workshop and heated potting shed at its wholesale nursery on the South Deeside Road. The social enterprise provides placements for people with or recovering from mental illness. They had applied for £7000, but my motion to support this was defeated by six votes to four.
Aberdeen Aeromodellers Flying Club was given a £1575, half the cost of a project to repair the ground near Banchory Devenick.
The Skateraw Fair was awarded £494, half the cost of purchasing a commercial barbecue, table and chairs, which will also be used by Newtonhill Village Association.
Some 97.1% of street lighting faults in Kincardine and Mearns are repaired within seven days.
Planning permission for demolition of an existing garage and erection of a double garage on Newtonhill Road, Newtonhill, has been turned down by the local review body. The grounds were that it would have had an overbearing and overshadowing impact on neighbouring properties.
New school roll forecasts show that Hillside School could be at 175% capacity in 2022. The 2018 roll will be 371 (the figures are based on September rolls), but the capacity is 350. Clearly something has to be done. In comparison Fishermoss School will be at 77% capacity in 2022, and Portlethen Primary 69%. Education officers are working on solutions, such as rezoning the catchment areas, or adding extra classrooms (Hillside was designed with this in mind). Out-of-zone requests are already being turned down. Another option is a reconfiguration to create more teaching space. I asked officers to provide updates on progress.
Plans for the erection of a workshop to the south west of the Newtonhill flyover were rejected by eight votes to three. The 12m high grey building would have been built next to West Monduff, and conditions would have been attached regarding noise and lighting. However the plans for the access road were designed so that long commercial articulated vehicles might have to either mount the pavement or overhang the centre line of the carriageway as they turned left to leave the site to head towards the Chapelton roundabout. This concerned me greatly and I moved that it be refused.
The reports before the committee can be found at http://committees.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/committees.aspx?commid=8&meetid=18836
Good news. The bus service round St Michael’s Road and St Ternan’s Road in Newtonhill will be restored from tomorrow (16 January).
It was inadvertently omitted from the timetable which was introduced last Monday.
Stagecoach said today: “I can only apologise for this omission. The code was missed as we pulled the timetable together finally and hence it was omitted. This has however now been corrected and the depot are preparing to ensure that the 0858 7B from Forest Park in Stonehaven serves St Michael’s Road on its route to Aberdeen and the 0855 7B from Aberdeen to Stonehaven does likewise.”
There was no mention of the afternoon journey, at about 3pm, in the email so it may run tomorrow. Or not. I’ll ask.
By the way, the service around St Michael’s Road is a hail-and-ride service. You can simply stop the bus anywhere on St Michael’s Road or St Ternan’s Road by putting out your hand to hail the bus. There is only one official bus stop, outside the primary school.
Stagecoach management is also open to considering whether there should be a more regular service round the Saints. But this would require sufficient usage. Would there be a demand to justify more buses?