Students and staff at the North Highland College UHI are delighted after attending the annual LANTRA awards ceremony last week in the Dunblane Hydro Hotel. Gamekeeping modern apprentice Callum Low and NC Gamekeeping with Wildlife Management student Mary Bowman both were both nominated for Game and Wildlife Learner of the Year award.
Week Commencing 9th March 2015. This is a short message to update you on activities relating to the Caithness & North Sutherland Regeneration Partnership.
Health staff to get recommended increase in full. NHS staff in Scotland are to benefit from an independently recommended pay rise in 2015/16, thanks to changes agreed by the Scottish Government.
Less Favoured Area Scheme 2014 payments start. Thousands of hill farmers and crofters in Scotland's most fragile and remote areas are set to receive vital support payments by the end of this week.
FM reflects on progress and challenges at International Women's Day event. The gap between male and female employment rates in Scotland has fallen to a record low, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced today.
Red tape slashed for tens of thousands. Over 100,000 people and businesses have saved an average of £241 by submitting online planning applications to the ePlanning Scotland website, since its launch in 2009.
The Highland Council members will consider ed a report on Thursday 12th March 2105 which sets out how Highland Council performs compared to other Local Authorities in Scotland. The benchmarking framework reports on how much councils spend on particular services, service performance and how satisfied people are with the major services provided by councils.
Highland (Scottish Labour) MSP, Rhoda Grant met earlier this week with Mike Kean, who led the successful Abellio bid for the ScotRail franchise, ahead of the formal handover from First at the beginning of April. Mrs Grant who had sought the meeting, which took place in Parliament, focused discussion on what improvements far north rail line users could expect from Abellio, when they become the new ScotRail train operating company.
NHS Highland is to be recalled to give evidence to the Public Audit Committee in order for MSPs to question them again on their management of NHS Highland's finances in 2013/14. At its meeting today the Public Audit Committee agreed to recall three witnesses from NHS Highland to give further evidence on the AGS report: 2013/14 audit of NHS Highland: Financial management.
The Caithness and Sutherland Local Development Plan Main Issues Report (CaSPlan MIR) was published in October 2014 as a discussion document that set out initial ideas for what the plan needs to achieve for people and places in the area and the Council's initial preferences for where new development might be located. The consultation for the CaSPlan MIR finished on 6 February 2015.
James Fisher Marine Services Booths Park House Chelford Road Knutsford Cheshire Main Contact Stan Groundwater s.groundwater[AT]james-fisher.co.uk tel 01856831380 mob 07747843712 All positions to be quoted in World Geodetic System 1984 [WGS84], lat. / long., in deg./ minutes.
DINGWALL, Dingwall & Highland Marts, (March, 11th) sold 2,194 sheep of all classes. Lambs (903) averaged £55.31 and sold to £94 gross for Swaledale crosses from Leys Castle, Inverness.
David Phillips, senior research economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies writes for the Institute of Fiscal Studies. Today, the Scottish Government published the latest version of its annual Government Expenditure and Revenues Scotland (GERS) publication covering 2013-14.
DINGWALL, Dingwall & Highland Marts (March, 7th) sold 20 cattle, 1 donkey, 3 goats, 76 sheep, 527 lots of poultry, eggs and poultry equipment at their poultry, rare & traditional breeds of livestock sale. Cattle (20) sold to £770 gross for a Highland cow with heifer calf at foot from Mains of Inkhorn, Auchnagatt.
Taxi and private hire car operators (PHC) and drivers in Highland are being invited to meet with The Highland Council's Taxi/PHC Sub Group to provide Members with their views on a number of issues relating to the trade. There will also be an opportunity for the trade to raise any issue which they wish with the sub group.
DINGWALL, Dingwall & Highland Marts Ltd., (March, 10th) sold 53 prime cattle. Prime bullocks (34) averaged 205.3p (-6.7p) and sold to 212p per kg and £1,452.55 gross.
Highlands and Islands (Scottish Labour) MSP, Rhoda Grant has written to the Highland Council Chief Returning Office over concerns about the new system of voter registration ahead of the General Election due to take place on 7th May. Last year saw the UK Government make the biggest changes to voter registration in a generation with the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration which was aimed at giving people more control over the process and increase the accuracy of the register.
The news that two offshore wind projects have been successful in the first auction for renewable power held under the Department for Energy and Climate Change's ‘Contract for Difference' (CfD) regime, coupled with the findings of a new industry report, show that costs in offshore wind are coming down faster than originally expected. The CfD regime, established by the 2013 Energy Act, gives renewable power developers Government contracts that provide certainty on funding levels to enable a project to be developed; this is known as a "strike price", which is paid based on the total number of megawatt hours (MWh) of power produced for fifteen years of operation.
A ward at Caithness General Hospital has been closed to new admissions and visitors are being asked to stay away while staff deal with several cases of diarrhoea and vomiting. Bignold Wing currently has seven patients affected and samples have shown that norovirus is present in the ward.
A significant new city centre visitor attraction proposed for Inverness has received a major funding boost when Members of The Highland Council City of Inverness Area Committee approved £100k Inverness Common Good Funding. The project which will see two public viewing platforms providing a 360 degree vista from the North Tower of Inverness Castle; and development of shop and interpretation area is anticipated to attract over 25,000 visitors within its first year.