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Minutes of the Helmsdale and District Community Council

Meeting held in the Community Centre
Thursday 3rd March 2011

Present

Evelyn MacKenzie (Chairman)

Elizabeth Fraser (Vice Chairman)
Edward MacKay (Vice Chairman)
Ann Houghton (Secretary)
Stan Amey
Malcolm Bromley
Margaret Cairns
Annie Cowie
Rosemary Findlay
Lorna Smith
Christine Sutherland
Pete Carson (Local Development Officer)
Cllr Deirdre Mackay

Apologies

Roz Shorrock
Garry MacMillan

Approval of the Minutes

The Minutes of the last meeting were approved as true record. They were proposed
by Annie Cowie and seconded by Edward MacKay.

There was no Police representative at this month’s meeting.

Councillors Report

The Councillor explained that this year there is to be a change in the CC Election
formula. There will now be 8 members on the council and they will be contested
elections. The details will be forwarded to secretaries in due course. A quorum will
be 4 members.
Stan Amey – if there are 8 members how will it work if a vote has 4 on each side.
The answer is that the Chairman will have 2 votes.

The Councillor also advised the CC that the Service Point in Helmsdale will not be
one of the Service Points to be closed.
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Matters arising from the Minutes

The secretary had received a reply to her letter to Garry Coutts regarding queries
about NHS Guidelines. The letter thanked her for her letter and stated he would have
to investigate the issues further to enable him to respond fully and he will be in touch
there after.

Christine Sutherland said that at a recent meeting of the Friends of Brora and
Helmsdale Surgery the Practice Manager had intimated that Dr Claydon may be
drawing up guidelines which would help patients to decide which injuries should
attend the Minor Injuries Clinic at the Lawson Memorial Hospital. At the meeting it
was suggested that maybe this could be included in the Newsletter.

There was no Treasurers Report this month. Elizabeth Fraser handed over a donation
envelope from McColls for the Christmas Light fund.

Gordonbush Windfarm Community Fund

Pete Carson had attended a meeting of the 4 groups concerned who would benefit
from the fund. It had been agreed that each representatives would go back to their
CC’s to find out how that Council wished to proceed. At the Windfarm meeting he
had said that the Helmsdale and District CC was unanimously behind the motion that
they would like their share of the fund at the beginning of each year and had informed
the other CC’s plus SSE and SCF. SSE has said if there is a split vote they will
consider a meeting. Brora CC’s concerns were that if they received the funding at the
beginning of the year and had not spent it - would they have to give back the
remaining money? The answer to that is no. The other concern of the other 3 CCs is
that unlike Helmsdale they do not have a Development Officer and would have to do
the administrative work themselves instead of SCF doing it for them. The eventual
panel will be made up of 12 people - 3 from each Community and all applications will
be vetted by SCF but the Panel will have the final say. Helmsdale – like the other 3
will be in a position to apply for funds. Pete suggested that Helmsdale need to get in
as many applications as possible and really make sure that Helmsdale gets its share of
the funds – or more. Evelyn commented that good applications would not be turned
down.
Elizabeth Fraser asked if any other wind farms are planned in this area? Pete knows
of one planned for Glen Loth of 12 turbines. He had asked that if this was the case
could 1 turbine be used for Helmsdale funding?
Stan Amey asked how much one turbine could benefit us and Pete suggested 1 turbine
could generate as much as £285,000 but this depends on the basis of any agreement
with the developer.
..

Syre Road Closure

Evelyn MacKenzie reported that there had been a total mix up about the closure of the
road. The report that had been circulated was that the road would be closed for 5
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weeks and HGVs would have to do a round trip through Lairg for 5 weeks. The road
would be closed between 9am and 5pm for all vehicles. Evelyn had rung Cllr Mackay
to see if she could get any information. Cllr Mackay had contacted Campbell Stewart
who knew nothing about the road closure. Letter had been sent out on the Thursday
and Friday addressed to occupiers with no correct addresses on advising that the road
would be closed for 5 weeks on the following Monday with instructions to contact
Campbell Stewart in Wick. Campbell Stewart does not work in Wick. The letter was
from Ian Moncrieff who maintained that the road had to be closed to all traffic. The
contractors have agreed that access can be made for cars and have been amenable
about the problem. Ian Moncrieff has been very unhelpful and difficult to contact.
The rules and regulations have not been adhered to. It was agreed after discussion on
the matter that a letter be written to Alistair Dodds from the CC to complain about this
matter. Edward Mackay asked who the contractor was and had they been appointed
without the work going out for tender? Stan Amey suggested that this was a show of
poor planning and cost control. Elizabeth Fraser agreed and said that it was
deplorable mismanagement. It was agreed that the letter to Alistair Dodds from the
CC would add weight to the complainants from Kinbrace and adjacent areas. Stan
Amey suggested too that an enquiry be made as to why the job was not put out to
legal tender.

Development Group

Pete Carson reported that the Open Day was a great success with tables for each of the
contributing groups Petrol Station, Rowing club, Composting, Coppicing, Farmers
Market, Core Paths, and Helmsdale Station. There were volunteers at most of the
tables to answer questions and forms for people interested to add their names (These
will be contacted in due course). A newsletter had been published before Christmas
with enclosed feedback form. On the day there were about 60 people through the
door. There were also free tea and coffee. Mike Willmot had managed to make
contacts with directors for his project. There is hopefully to be 11 allotments on the
land below Phoebes Weir’s land. Unfortunately at the moment there is a large mound
of rubble on the site and enquiries are being made on how to dispose of it. It was
asked if it could be used as road fill but Edward MacKay said that firstly this was
dumped after refurbishments to The Bridge Hotel and is likely to be large cement
slabs and wooden beams. Secondly these days it had to be moved to licensed tips by
licensed carriers. Evelyn MacKenzie said it should not hat been dumped there in the
first place. Pete is to write to another land holder again to enquire if her site is
available to develop for allotments

A.O.B.

Helmsdale Station – Mike Willmot was proceeding with the renovation of the Station.
He now had received applications for local directors. Evelyn mentioned that at one
time the Leader Funding might not be available due to the fact of lack of directors but
the application for leader funding had been deferred until May for him to rectify the
problem.

The secretary read out a letter addressed to the CC from Valery George Company
Secretary to the Helmsdale and District Community Association. It read as follows:
Student Visit
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This much rumour, misunderstanding and misinformation circulation over the visit of
the University Students to Helmsdale this weekend.

The Vice Chairman has asked to write to you to clear up any misunderstanding.

The Senior Tutor of the Department of Architecture ran me to ask if the HDCA could
provide overnight accommodation for party of students. She explained that they had
been unsuccessful in getting the Hostel for the night and it had been suggest4ed to her
that the Community Centre might be able to help. She explained that separate
company was coming to film the student’s fieldtrip and an exhibition on Helmsdale.

She continued by saying that without Hostel accommodation, the visit would have to
be cancelled.

As there was no possibility of using the Hostel, it was agreed to help.

I would like to point out that for many years RAF Kinloss has taken over the Centre
for a weekend of ‘Search and Rescue’ Training during the summer without any
problems

I have attached the email from Ms Elsein for further information.

Yours sincerely
Valery George.

The fax was from Ulrike Enslein and read as follows

Dear Valery

I am very surprised about you email I received on Friday.

As the year 5 studio director and leader of this Year 5 student excursion I am the only
person authorised to make any bookings! In this position I am holding the sole
responsibility for the fieldtrip account. In Helmsdale I have only made contact to the
Hostel (Irene) for enquiry and after finding out that the hostel is not specially opening
for us, I have contacted you and made the booking for the 21 students.
I have not spoken to anyone else in Helmsdale apart from you, Irene and Nicole from
the Timespan Gallery and I only made a booking request to you and Nicole.
Therefore I am very surprised who is claiming that I made a booking and is now
claiming a loss of business after my cancellation? (My initial web search only made
me the contact the hostel as the hotels in the area were far beyond our accommodation
budget allowance).

I would like to speak to the representative of the Helmsdale Accommodation Provider

to find out the details and also to follow up the false claims that I made a booking or
someone else made a booking in our name.
Could you please forward me his/her name and contact details.
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The only possible explanation I have got is that Matt and Andy form a small company
called ‘Dress for the Weather’ who are joining us at the fieldtrip to organise an
exhibition of our trip/work and also and exhibition on Helmsdale contacted locals in
the search of suitable accommodation.
Both have made enquiries to find out if there are any suitable accommodation in
Helmsdale for a large group after the hostel wasn’t available for us, as without
suitable accommodation Helmsdale would have not been an option for us to stay or to
visit. Both Any and Matt would/could not have booked an accommodation for our
university group nor would they have attempted too, as I am the only person to do
this.

Andy from the company has spoken to me about a special deal one the hotels could do
for us (£25 per head per night) but I had to reject this as the type of accommodation
and as well our budget wouldn’t allow us to spend £25 per person per night, therefore
we didn’t consider this option.
Also I didn’t support Matt’s suggestion to book several B&B’s in Helmsdale as this
would split the group in several groups and therefore make very difficult to get
together as a group and also to create the sense of group spirit this trip should instil in
students. And on top the B&Bs would still be more expensive than the original
calculated stay in the Hostel.

Also I want to say something about the nature of the trips and the limitation of our
budget. This is the second trip we undertake with our students and normally we stay
at community centres, outdoor centres and hostels on mattresses/sleeping bags on
floors, and we are cooking for ourselves, this way the cost can be kept to a limit as for
some o our students the trip would be otherwise not affordable. The purpose of the
trip is also to promote local communities with our work/research, exhibitions and
material we are producing along the way, therefore more than one person and their
business would profit from ourtripo, and it would be the whole community.

Our work/visit and also ‘Dress for the Weather’s’ work will/would contribute in
numbers of ways towards the promotion of Helmsdale. Needless to say that
University of Strathclyde nether DftW would profit or make any profit out of our
visit, therefore we hoped that we would get the full support from the local community
re accommodation and our visit.

Now that you have rejected our booking I don’t see any other option than to consider
to cancel the stay in Helmsdale altogether as I don’t won’t to be forced to stay with
my students at a location someone tries to make money out of my students and also to
force us into an accommodation which we have not picked free of choice and we
never booked in first place. If the 21 students can’t stay at your community centre (or
hostel) we definitely will not stay in Helmsdale and I need to reconsider our visit to
Helmsdale.

After my phone call last week I was delighted to have spoken to you and also to be
able to stay at the community centre as you have been the first person (during the
organisation of the fieldtrip) I have spoken to who genuinely tried to help us.

I will phone you on Monday to discuss this further, but I just wanted to let you know
my position beforehand.
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Do you see any way that we can resolve the issue?

Kind regards.

A discussion took place amongst the members of the CC present and it was agreed
that as long as the appropriate regulations and public liabilities were in order then it
would be acceptable for the students to use the Community Centre. It would be a
shame for Helmsdale to miss out on this opportunity to promote the area.

Annie Cowie – there has been rubbish dumped behind the High Wall at the Harbour.
Action – this will be reported
Children’s swing broken at playpark – action – this will be reported.

Meeting closed at 8.50pm

The next meeting will be on Thursday 7th April at 7.30pm in the Community Centre.