Highland Councillors who are members of the Planning Review body rejected the application to extend the Forss wind farm with anther five turbines. Councillors on the review body visited the site on Thursday 19th July 2012 and decided that the planners had previously made the correct decision based on the intrusion to the views in the area.
Council to run sessions highlighting changes to the welfare benefit system. The Highland Council will be running a number of awareness raising sessions in Skye and Lochalsh, Ullapool and Dingwall over the next few weeks advising people on how changes to the new Welfare Reform may affect them.
Deadline extended for local contractors to apply for construction works opportunities with Highland Council. Local contractors in the Highlands have been given an extra week within which to apply to The Highland Council to join its new Contractors Framework Agreement.
The Highland Council is gearing up to play its part in the latest big event to take place in the area - the Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open - to be played at the Castle Stuart Golf Links, near Inverness, from Thursday 12 July until Sunday 15 July. The Council has been working closely with the European Tour, the owners of the golf links, the police, Stagecoach, HIE and Event Scotland to ensure that the organisation of the event runs smoothly.
With many people facing increasing challenges in finding jobs and career opportunities The Highland Council, in partnership with the European Social Fund, has taken positive steps to help by launching an Employment Grants Scheme that will encourage and support businesses in the creation of additional posts for unemployed people. Targeted at small and medium sized businesses employing fewer than 250 people, a wage subsidy of up to £150 per week is available for 6 months to create additional and permanent posts.
As part of a wider commitment to promoting youth employment, The Highland Council, with support from Europe, has launched a project which aims to be a springboard to full-time employment or future study or training for young people who have difficulty in securing work. The Youth Trainee Project has funding of £440,000 until March 2014 to provide 66 young people (16-24 years) with 6 months of paid work placements within Council Services.
Figures released by The Highland Council to coincide with National Recycle Week show that the new refuse and recycling service introduced in Caithness in April 2011 has been a great success. This saw the introduction of a fortnightly refuse collection alternating with a fortnightly mixed recycling collection for paper, cardboard, food tins, drink cans and plastic bottles.
Giant Hogweed is an impressive plant from the Caucasus region of far eastern Europe which can grow up to 12 feet tall and can have a flower head up to a foot across. These impressive statistics made it a plant that was sought after for Victorian estate gardens.
The Highland Council will be carrying out a major patching exercise on the A897 between Helmsdale and Kinbrace with work starting on Monday (9 July 2012). The works will be carried out Monday to Friday between 8am to 4pm over a 4 to 5 week period and due to the nature of the work delays of up to 20 minutes can be expected throughout the working day.
Keep Scotland Beautiful mobilised 3,378 volunteers to clean up Highland as part of Scotland's National Spring Clean. 2,612 children and 766 adults from Highland were amongst 117,734 volunteers from across Scotland who gave their time between 1 April and 31 May to support National Spring Clean, run by Scotland's leading charity for the environment, Keep Scotland Beautiful.
The consultation on the first stage of preparing the Local Development Plan for the Inner Moray Firth area is drawing to a close, with the deadline for submissions at 5 pm on Friday (6 July). The consultation document, known as the Main Issues Report, asks for people's thoughts on where future development should and should not be located across the Inner Moray Firth area which stretches from Tain in the North to Fort Augustus in the South and Auldearn in the East to Garve in the West.
The Caithness District Partnership, which will identify key issues and priorities governing the care of children and adults in the county, met for the first time earlier this week when it agreed that, as a first priority, it would support a review and re-design of services for adults in Caithness, with a particular focus on older adult care and support. The meeting took place at the Pulteneytown People's Project Community Centre, Wick, when Colin Punler, an NHS Board Member from Thurso, was elected chairman.
The Highland Council has agreed to embark on a four-month public consultation over budget savings needed in 2013/14 and 2014/15. The Council estimates the savings targets will be £11.5 million in 2013/14 and £18.2 million in 2014/15.
The Highland Council has shown its commitment to the economy of the North Highlands in approving £10,000 towards the design of an improved road alignment for the Berriedale Braes. This stretch of the A9 is maintained by Transport Scotland.
Following a third round of Community Council elections in the Highlands, three new councils are guaranteed to be formed. Caithness West and Uig, Skye, can operate from 3 July as they received more nominations than half their maximum membership.
A report going to next week's meeting of The Highland Council will ask members to approve £10,000 to go towards the design of an improved road alignment for a notorious stretch of the A9 trunk road known as the Berridale Braes. The proposal is to remove the north hairpin by realigning the existing road within the corridor between the cemetery and the coastal cliff.
The Highland Council's Leadership today launched a "bold and ambitious" programme of priorities for action over the next five years. "Working together for the Highlands" is being presented to the next meeting of the Council on Thursday 28 June for confirmation as the Programme for The Highland Council.
Caithness District Partnership will meet for the first time on Tuesday 26 June, as part of new arrangements under the Integrating Care in the Highlands partnership between NHS Highland and The Highland Council. The new District Partnership, which will meet in public, will identify key local issues and priorities for children and adults in Caithness that can be better delivered through joint working between partners at local level, including NHS Highland, Highland Council, Voluntary and Independent providers and local communities.
4 pm on Wednesday (27 June) is the deadline for candidates to return their election nomination forms for round 3 of the forthcoming Community Council elections, which involve those which are currently unformed. Nominations are invited from persons seeking election as members of Community Councils in Wards 2/4: Caithness West (10 members); Ward 11: Uig (8 members); Ward 12: Caol (9 members); Ward 15: Inverness Central (8 members); Ward 21: Aviemore and Vicinity (9 members); Laggan (8 members).
The north Planning committee of Highland council agreed on Tuesday 19th June 2012 to grant planning permission for construction of a Community Wind Farm at Rumster Forest with Three 900 kW Wind Turbines, with a Height to Hub of 50m and a Rotor Diameter of 50 m, Formation of Access Track and Erection of a Switchgear Building and Associated Cabling. The applicants were Latheron, Lybster and Clyth Community Development Company formed a few years ago following the set up of an Initiative at the Edge project.