It’s been a busy year for Cumbrae Community Council. Our key achievements are listed below.

XLCC: We have asked for a better publicised community meeting following the poorly advertised and poorly attended meeting in October. We continue to raise key issues of the lack of the baseline noise assessment for the island.

Solar farm planning application: After consulting the island and publicising issues, the applicant withdrew their application in September. More than 200 of you took the time to share their views. Many volunteers gave their time to creating and distributing the leaflet. Thank you.

Out of control campervan parking: In August, following incidents with waste and a lack of respect for the island, North Ayrshire Council agreed to install ‘No parking overnight’ signs in laybys around coast road. A group will now be formed.

Japanese knotweed: Some was sprayed in August – much still needs spraying and we will continue to lobby North Ayrshire Council.

Parking bays around the island: North Ayrshire Council began tarmacking and heavily white-lining parking bays around coast road in July, the Community Council intervened, and this work was stopped pending further discussion.

CCC planning and licensing application policy: Our document outlining how we will approach applications was approved in June – you can find it here.

Electric vehicle charging point: We contacted North Ayrshire Council when works started outside the Premier Store in July. We told the Council the parking spaces it removed needed to prioritise people with accessibility needs to access essential shops. Despite assurances that the community would be notified of possible locations, NAC marked a space near the War Memorial in Oct. We raised concerns and the markings were removed. Assurances have again been received that we will be consulted on the next proposed location.

Collaboration: We hold monthly meetings for all groups on the island which are attended by North Ayrshire Council and Elected Members:

• In July we invited Thomas Reaney, Head of Waste / Roads / Streetscene from North Ayrshire Council to attend to discuss the issues regularly raised by the community which sit within his area of responsibility.
• We represent the island at North Coast Locality Partnership meetings.
• We attend the Ferry Users Group with a residents’ perspective and we sit on meetings about Hunterston, Peel Ports, the flood defences, the marina and the Carbon Neutral Project.

Ten year plan: we provided detailed comments and edits to the North Ayrshire Council team ahead of their launch in March.

Website: Our resident-focused website www.Cumbrae.org launched in January.

Community Council membership

We would like to thank those who have volunteered their time to contribute to the Community Council over the last year.

As of November 2022 we have the following team in place:

• Alex Harvie (Chair)
• Keith Hammond (Secretary)
• John McHenery
• Angus Campbell
• Duncan Fraser
• John Riggins
• Gregor Harvie (Adviser)
• Graham Wallace (Adviser)

If you would like to join us or volunteer some time we’d love to hear from you. Please email cumbraeccouncil@gmail.com.

Priorities for 2023

We have created a matrix to show the projects we are working on as well as which Community Council member is responsible. We will publish this on our website.

Some of the key areas we will be working on in 2023 include:

• Getting a clear understanding what everyone on the island thinks. This will involve getting more people signed up to our mailing list so we can ask people’s views of key issues such as the solar farm.
• Now that Angus is part of the Community Council we will look to see how we can lend our weight and support to ongoing discussions about the ferry.
• Following feedback from community members, we will be working with the Police, North Ayrshire Council and Calmac to address the problem of overnight camping on the island. We will keep everyone informed on any progress.

Our finances

Cumbrae Community Council operates two accounts – a Project Account and an Administration Account. When the current CCC took office the balances in the two accounts were £1,666.57 in the Project Account and £1,447.28 in the Administration account.

Project Account

£368.20 for printing of the Solar Farm consultation document, leaving a balance of £1,298.37.

Administration Account

£143.88 for Zoom account for meetings (which NAC will reimburse)

£87.32 for setting up and registering the CCC domain website.

£34.48 for the wreath for Remembrance Day to the RBLS Millport.

This leaves a balance of £1,181.60 before the reimbursement.

These figures will be submitted to NAC for audit as required by our constitution.

24 November 2022