Stephen Malkmus

Jack Waddington is making the most sensible posts in this thread. It's quite remarkable.

There's a site search document included as part of the application which says they'd been looking for sites close to the Inverness GSP substation for a couple of years before this site was considered. They ruled out the church next to the substation and sites near the Ness-side housing development for various reasons.

It's protected from development unless either: - it can be suitably demonstrated that the open space is not fit for purpose - substitute provision will be provided, or - development of the open space would significantly contribute to the spatial strategy for the area The applicant should have made the case that the development significantly contributes to the spatial strategy for the area by providing renewable energy infrastructure to support the creation of sustainable communities.

Application deferred to allow more information to be provided and a site visit to take place. Helpful.

The key issue is the loss of designated open space and the implications that would have for other applications relating to housing that are coming forward for the old golf course. Even though planning applications should technically be considered on their own merits and therefore can't set a precedent, Council officers will still likely be thinking about how this will affect those other applications. Noise is pretty much a non-issue: these facilities are being consented all over the country with acoustic barriers and mitigation planting which lessens the amount of noise and any effect on properties. The distributor road being so close means that noise is already present in the area, and noise from the battery facility would blend into this to a large extent. It's pretty shoddy that ILI didn't submit a noise assessment up front with the planning application, and only did so after the Council's Environmental Health officer asked for one. Nonetheless, the mitigation features could easily be conditioned as part of an approval, as the chairman has said. The non-expert members of the planning committee are more likely than not to refuse the application for this reason, however. The other issues like biodiversity loss and drainage would be easy enough to overcome as well. It looks like ILI were caught on the hop by a change of planning policy relating to biodiversity in February, and then submitted a pretty poor quality report to deal with the issue (followed by the Council's ecologist being remarkably unhelpful, going by the correspondence on the website). Again though, if the council were being reasonable this issue could be overcome through agreements with officers. Transport is not an issue as these facilities generate little need for trips other than during construction - and the distributor road is a perfectly acceptable construction traffic route. Impacts on property value aren't a planning consideration. My suspicion is that Council officers are most concerned about the loss of open space and its implications for future development at the golf course, so they are trying to load up a refusal with as many reasons for refusal as possible to reduce the chances of an appeal to the Government succeeding. The real issue with the application that was submitted is a lack of a detailed planning policy assessment justifying the scheme, and that makes me wonder if ILI are treating this application as a low priority for whatever reason (probably as there's little profit in it for them). The club must have had positive pre-application discussions with the Council, otherwise I'm not sure where their confidence and subsequent surprise stems from. I reckon they'll actually have a pretty good chance of winning an appeal as the new National Planning Framework is very supportive of developments such as this, but that might take a year and will cost thousands if they want someone competent to handle the process.

Yep. Use their salaries to fund a decent coaching staff.

Get Dodds and Gardiner sacked now @sheepslagger They're taking the pîss out of you.

Anyone heard from this character recently?

If he had his dream job as Sporting Director of Hearts, do you think their fans would acquiesce to his continued employment by the club if he was commentating on Hibs games every time Hearts were playing away? Enough is enough. Time for the broom of change to sweep through the club.

Are you aware of the concept of 'coaching'?

Gardiner should call Dodds into his office, sack him, and then resign

Our pre-season phase ended after we played Nairn.

Please try to keep the thread on topic and stop prying into my personal life.

I'm a close personal friend of Billy Mckay.

Billy Mckay is a man who understands, and has consistently delivered, for The Caley. I am willing to look past him being briefly seduced by Tory Roy to call him a true club legend. The fact that our ******** CEO was messing him around over a contract in the summer speaks volumes. I hope he outlasts those in charge and continues to score when he wants for a long time to come.

"Yes, I support Celtic but the town being full of Old Firm fans is somehow the fault of young people" Youngsters are fickle because they have so many more opportunities and options available to them and they are exploring them to find their way in life. Back in the day the only forms of entertainment in Inverness were watching the one channel on TV or walking up and down Stephen's Brae constantly. It's a lot harder to be fickle in that environment.

We can certainly afford to exclude half the site admin, moderators and prominent posters, but we shouldn't be excluding half the population imo.

You and CaleyD are certainly the only ones who believe five-dotted ellipsis to be a legitimate grammatical construct. Stop embarrassing yourself.

Well, clearly. But the vast majority of the coverage will be from the main broadcasting angle in the South Stand. It would be presentational basics for the SFA to ensure fans of both teams are shown from the primary broadcasting angle. In addition to the fact this adds to the spectacle for the neutrals watching on tv, it also advertises the club to potential new fans by showcasing the colour and character of our support. Hiding us out of shot does not.

It will look like they have the whole stadium.

So here is a visual representation of our allocation for the final. Pretty shambolic that anyone viewing on tv will be faced with a wall of arseholes while we're stuck out of view.

You used to be cool, buckett

The Polite Notice applies to fans only. The squad are not ICT fans, they are employees of the club. The CEO should leave for being incompetent.

You seem a lot more excited to talk about other websites than I am. Please try to keep the thread on topic.