A blather about what would make Colglen a better place with soup, cakes and beverages
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Col-Glen Place Plan Get-together
Author: Charles Dixon-Spain
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A Place Plan for ColGlen
The Community Council and Development Trust along with support from Argyll and Bute Climate Action Network are facilitating the co-creation of a place plan for our area.
Here is the flyer introducing this project:
Links in the flyer:
http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/planning-and-building/planning-policy/local-place-plans
Michael Russell, Vice-chair of the Community Council writes:
Further to the meeting held on Wednesday night about the Argyll Rally, Sam Spencer from the Rally shared the community consultation document for the 2025 Rally yesterday and I append it to this … [post as a downloadable document]
The CC has already responded, and I also give the response below [in this post]. You will see that we have taken an interim position, supporting the rally but suggesting some important changes including reducing the usage of what the Rally calls the “Kilmodan” Road and which we would call the West Road.
The CC’s next meeting is on Monday 9th September in the Glen Hall at 7.30pm and at that meeting we will decide if we should make any further response. We will also ensure that we have representation at as many of the future meetings about this as we can.
Finally the address to which individual responses to the consultation can be sent, is
consultation@argyllrally.co.uk
and that should be done as quickly as possible. You may wish to copy your responses to Argyll & Bute Council , Motorsport UK and the RSAC which is the Scottish Motorsport body and which has a role in supervising rallies in Scotland.
Those addresses are :
Finally thanks are due to everyone who came to the meeting or who emailed beforehand. By and large there was a positive discussion and most people believed that the points being made would be useful in improving the situation for the rally and for the local community.
Best wishes
Michael
Begin forwarded message:
From: Michael Russell
To: Sam Spencer, Clerk of the Course, Dunoon Presents Argyll Rally
Subject: Rally Consultation – views from COLGLEN Community Council
Date: 23 August 2024 at 11:31:12 BST
Dear Sam
Thank you for coming to the community meeting on Wednesday night and for your very positive and thoughtful input. The Community Council is now responding to the consultation document you sent yesterday and this email is also being copied to Colin Moulson, of Dunoon Presents and Hugh O’Neill of Argyll and Bute Council as well as to all those who attended on Wednesday along with the links to the document you provided.
However, whilst the Colintraive and Glendaruel Community Council would like this response to be considered as a formal response to the consultation we will look at the proposals in more detail at our next meeting due on 9th September and may add additional information at that time.
Firstly we would want to make it clear that we are not against the rally and indeed welcome the economic benefits it produces. What we want to see is the experience of and benefits arising from the rally improved for all residents of our area.
We do not presently believe that those benefits have been evenly spread nor that , where they exist, information about them has been communicated as effectively as needs to be the case. We are also of the view that there has been inadequate consultation with those most seriously affected by the rally (largely those whose access to, and egress from, their homes is curtailed by the rally) . In particular we regard the three or four week period for consultation on the detailed plans to be inadequate and we would suggest that the planning cycle for the rally be developed to allow a longer and more meaningful consultation period.
The ColGlen CC does of course accept that it needs to be more actively involved with the rally planning process and will now try to be so although it should be noted that we are a very small Community Council with the bare legal minimum of 5 members.
Turning to the discussion at the meeting held on Wednesday night we would make the following points:1)Allowing damage to go unrepaired for any period of time is not acceptable. We suggest that the Rally organisers list the damage that has been done immediately after each rally and make that list available to the CC and through the CC to local residents. The Rally must then take an active role in ensuring that the damage is repaired speedily and completely.
It would also be a small but useful compensation for residents most affected if the Fearnoch and Kilmodan stretches had the road surface repaired and brought up to a much better standard. We understand the pressure on the local authority in terms of resources but lack of attention to the road surface after each rally is cumulative and concerning. 2) The conditions applied to the organisers within the agreed licence needed to be observed and seen to be observed.For example there needs to be strict supervision of competitors on practice days so that access is not curtailed for residents and dangerous speeds and road hogging are prevented.
Emergency phone numbers on the rally days must be manned and responsive.
3) Signing for practice days needs to be put in place early and kept there. Signage on rally days must also be clearer about what is closed and must also stress what is open. Damage to local businesses in places like Tighnabruaich must be avoided by making it clear that access is always open to places not hosting closed stages.
4) The Rally should ensure that where there is a closure that impinges on residents in terms of their accessing their homes or being able to leave, then that is confined to a single session over the two days. That change would by itself reduce very substantially expressed concerns from affected residents. That session should either be Friday evening, Saturday morning, or Saturday afternoon. Whilst the Fearnoch (B886) proposal has reduced the closure from that imposed in 2024, the proposal for 2025 for the closure of what we call the West Road and the Rally calls Kilmodan is now even more unacceptable given that the road would be closed for all of Friday evening until the early hours of Saturday morning, and then for all of Saturday – morning, afternoon and evening and we would want to see that proposal withdrawn. Whilst they are outwith our area, we also think that more consultation is needed with the new areas included in the plans.
We understand that a minimum mileage is required to allow the rally to run and attract entrants, but there are alternatives in the area – for example within Cowal itself the roads to Lochgoilhead ,Ardentinny and Inverchoalain are not yet being used.
5) The consultation process with local residents most affected by closures has not been good enough and we would urge you to make direct contact with residents on any stretch of road that is proposed for closure. We are concerned on reading the information on the Motorsport UK website that there seems to be a contradiction in advice to organisers regarding consultation. We believe local people affected have the right to be heard and with that in mind we are encouraging residents to respond to your consultation and to copy their responses , if they so wish, to Motorsport UK, to the RSAC in Scotland and to Argyll & Bute Council.
I hope the above is helpful and I would stress again our aim in making these points is both to represent the range of views made to us at the meeting and beforehand , but also to ensure that the rally is able to develop strong community support in our area , as we know exists in Mull for that long established rally. Many people in our area already welcome the initiative and ensuring that these concerns are heard and acted on would we believe significantly assist the rally organisers, competitors and spectators as well as those local residents who remain adversely affected.
Yours sincerely
Michael W Russell
Vice-Chair
On behalf of ColGlen Community Council
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Community Council AGM
7.30pm, on the 9th September at the Glendaruel Village Hall
The Annual General Meeting was postponed from June to September at the June meeting of the CC
AGM Agenda
- Apologies for Absence
- Declarations of Interests
- Minutes of previous AGM
- Matters Arising
- Election of Office Bearers
- Chair’s Report
- Annual Accounts
- AOCB
- DONM
Agenda for following normal CC Meeting
- Apologies for Absence
- Declarations of Interest
- Minutes of Last Meeting
- Matters Arising
- Police Update
- Council Update
- Planning Matters
- Community Council 1. Financials
- Correspondence
- Funding Applications 9. Development Trust Update
- Report on Scottish Water
FOI Request - Rally Update
- Cal Mac Update
- AOCB
- DONM
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Argyll Rally Road closures detail
Attached is the councils notice to temporary prohibition of traffic at various locations in Cowell for the Argyll Rally. The community council will post this notice on the noticeboards in the village Hall for those who don’t have a ready Internet connection.
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CGCC AGM 2024
7.30pm, on the 10th June at the Colintraive Village Hall
All welcome. Please note: we will conduct our AGM prior to a normal business meeting. The Agenda for which will be published in due course here.
AGM Agenda
- Apologies for Absence
- Declarations of Interests
- Minutes of previous AGM
- Matters Arising
- Election of Office Bearers
- Chair’s Report
- Annual Accounts
- AOCB
- DONM
The headline says it all. Scheduled meetings for 2024 take place in either Glendaruel Village Hall (GVH) or the Colintraive Village Hall (CVH) at 7.30pm, and therefore the dates and venue are as follows:
- 12th February, CVH
- 11th March, GVH
- 8th April, CVH
- 13th May, GVH
- 10th June, CVH
Break for Summer
- 9th September, GVH
- 14th October, CVH
- 11th November, GVH
ALL WELCOME!
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Across the Loch, Podcast for ColGlen
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Happy New Year!
CGCC is to meet at the Glen Village Hall, at 7.30pm, 8th January 2024. Agenda attached below.
At our hugely well-attended meeting on the 9th October in Colintraive, the CC undertook to take several actions, the most important of which was to write to the Council to ask for urgent action on the repair / rebuild of the bridge at Loch Striven which prevents the B836 being re-opened. The text of the letter is below.
We should also report that the A886 has now been cleared as we requested on the 10th, and we have asked for further signage to highlight the damage to the road surface at Stronardron and just north of Springfield.
We should also thank local volunteers for stepping in on the morning of the 11th to start the clearance work. Their efforts were much appreciated!
Our letter to the council:
Dear Robin and Pippa,
Closure of the A836 – Urgent Action Needed
On behalf of the community of Colintraive and Glendaruel we are writing to highlight the critical importance to our community of the timely reopening of the B836 by means of the repair or replacement of the bridge at Balliemore at the top of Loch Striven. Our Community Council meeting on Monday was the best attended we have ever held and focused very closely on the issues arising as a result of the bridge being condemned and it was agreed that everything possible should be done to draw attention to the issue and seek the Council’s urgent input.
While we congratulate the council and its staff on their impressive and seemingly tireless response to the challenges to our infrastructure since the extraordinary weather event of the 6th/7th October, we want to ensure that this issue of the bridge is not lost or demoted in consideration but given the urgent priority it deserves.
Although a B road, the 836 is a vital link for all of West Cowal and for Bute. Its closure and the diversion via Strachur, means, for our communities and for the rest of West Cowal as well as for Bute, a minimum additional travelling distance of 20 miles for each and every trip – 40 for a return trip. That in itself is not only a major disruption to normal life – for example for picking up children who are at after school activities – it will add further to the social and economic isolation of a large part of rural Argyll. It will also increase costs of travel, mean greater wear and tear (and mileage) on our already over-stretched cars and will increase costs for local business, not least because the route is a Timber Transport Route as well as the main community route for tradespeople going to and from Dunoon to Rothesay and vice versa. The closure will make access to our communities for those delivering services and goods – for example social work or the delivery of food stuffs or on-line orders – much more difficult and costly. It will also mean that our communities are
- beyond the reach of Emergency Health Services within the Golden Hour
- at least 20 critical minutes more distant for Fire and Police Services.
- experiencing more than an additional half-hour on bus journey times for some – and most particularly for school age children getting to and from school
We estimate that given a minimum usage of 200 personal return journeys per day on the route, there will be an astonishing 240,000 extra miles driven each month the bridge remains closed. That figure does not include the costs to companies including delivery vans. The additional carbon added to the atmosphere will be very substantial.
We anticipate that your meeting on Monday will focus on the outstanding issues of repair and clearance facing the council, but it must also, in our view, consider with urgency the process by which the bridge can be either rebuilt or replaced within the shortest possible time scale. We understand there are potential solutions which would include using the old bridge foundations that are still extant or using the track to the farm that exists as a temporary replacement by surfacing it and putting in place a temporary bridge or major covered culvert.
We look forward to an early response and we would be keen to meet with representatives of the Council to discuss this further. We are copying this to the ward councillors who we hope will be active in ensuring rapid progress.
Kind regards,
Charles
Charles Dixon-Spain
Convener, Colintaive and Glendaruel Community Council