Bitter Nairn row with police now informed, leads to plea for outbreak of peace and love from Des Scholes
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By Donald Wilson
dw@hnmedia.co.uk
A PLEA for peace and love has been made in a bid to calm a bitter ongoing row between a Nairn community council and a breakaway group.
The rift within Nairn River Community Council led to five members quitting and launching their own organisation.
The community council’s chairman Hamish Bain has accused former members of stealing the club’s Facebook page – which acted as a platform to reach its followers in the area and further afield, but was closed down following abusive comments by members of the public on the portal.
The new group calls itself Nairn River Community Collaborative.
It is being viewed by Mr Bain as a further escalation of hostilities at a time when he thought the resignations would see an end to divisions.
The members of the new community collaborative have accused Mr Bain of acting in a “dictatorial” manner, with the community council driving personal agendas rather than assessing wider matters. They say their group will try and “embrace the diverse views” and use their contacts “for finding and actioning solutions”.
Mr Bain said the Facebook page had been an asset of Nairn River Community Council, despite making it dormant during 2018 because of inappropriate comments by members of the public during a planning application.
He claims its reactivation has been done fraudulently, adding: “This means that the list of several hundred ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ for this page has been harvested illegally by the Nairn River Community Collaborative.”
The community council is treating the matter as apparent identity theft and has reported the matter to police and Facebook.
“Obviously this is just another destructive tactic designed to distract us from getting on with our job of representing our community,” Mr Bain said.
“We are so weary of these individuals manipulating people like this. We thought we had seen the end of it with their resignations.
“The members of this group are no longer members of the [community] council and they should not be interfering with the Facebook site.”
The saga of the community council has been well documented, and at one time it was put in abeyance by Highland Council. Mr Bain was elected chairman earlier this year on a cut of cards with the vote split. He later
the resignations of Steven Bain and Katrina Woods.
Peter Gibson, chairman of Nairn BID resigned last month, along with Paul McIvor, Simon Noble and Stewart Stansfield.
The new group has been formed by five members who resigned from the council. Ms Woods is not a member.
Group spokesman Mr McIvor said: “Over the last year, we have all been enormously frustrated at Nairn River Community Council’s failure to represent the community. And we are not the only ones.
“The resistance of Nairn River Community Council members to engage or even reach out to local people has been especially disturbing.”
He said each Nairn River Community Collaborative member is actively involved in Nairn activity via local charities, other community groups and local businesses, including the Kayak Club, Nairn BID, Nairn CAB, Green Hive, Wheels in Nairnshire, and Nairn PLAY.
“As such, Nairn River Community Collaborative not only strives to embrace the diverse views of the public in their undertakings, but also collectively has an invaluable network of contacts to turn to for finding and actioning solutions. We are interested in working collaboratively in the community to represent the community.”
Regarding the Facebook page, he said: “We have followed appropriate protocols in setting up a website and Facebook page to provide the community with a means of engaging in matters of concern to them.”
He said there would be a public meeting held online on July 12 to discuss and develop plans. To receive the meeting link, email: contact@nairnrivercc.co.uk
Des Scholes, who is a former community council member and quit in 2017 amid internal strife, said: “Dissatisfied individuals forming their own group is nothing new in Nairn. I’m not a legal expert, but it depends who owns the Facebook page.
“They probably have done nothing wrong, but given the recent history rather than cause further rancour it would probably have been better to start a new Facebook site than rebrand an existing one. We seriously need an outbreak of peace and love.”
