Flying operations end at RAF Kinloss

STV – More than 70 years of military history are drawing to an end as the last regular flying operations take off from RAF Kinloss. The air base is being closed and converted into an army base under the UK Government’s defence cuts programme. The RAF is due to leave the Moray station in March [...]

Autism row: Family fury after son thrown out of theatre

STV – A furious dad has hit out at the “Wicked discrimination” shown against his autistic 12-year-old son who was “thrown onto the street” at a hit West End musical. Glyn Morris, 41, was enjoying a family holiday night out watching Wicked when he was asked to remove his son Gregor from the Apollo Theatre [...]

Telephone support after exam results arrive

Forres Gazette – STUDENTS from the Forres area will be among 160,000 young people in Scotland who will receive their exam results via email, text or by post nextThursday (August 4). For those who don’t get the results they had been hoping for, help is at hand in the form of a free call to [...]

Teenager jailed for raping 16-year-old girl in Dufftown

BBC – A teenager convicted of repeatedly raping a 16-year-old girl in a Moray town after meeting her for the first time has been jailed for five years. Andrew Ewen, now 17, of Aberlour, was 15 when the incident happed in Dufftown in July, 2009. Ewen claimed it was consensual, but was found guilty of [...]

Politicians proceed with caution

Forres Gazette – POLITICIANS have given a cautious welcome to the news RAF Kinloss is to become a British Army base. The area’s MP, MSPs, opposition candidate and community council members have said they are generally pleased about the decision. But concern has been expressed at the delay between the air force moving out and [...]

Drinks company Diageo boosts Speyside whisky production

BBC – Drinks company Diageo is stepping up whisky production to meet the growing demand from consumers in China, Russia and Latin America. The firm is investing £20m in its 17 Speyside distilleries over the next three years. It is hoped production can be boosted by about 10 million litres. Cragganmore distillery director, Gary Haggart, [...]

Honour for late Moray journalist Stewart MacPherson

BBC – A journalist whose career in newspapers took him from Moray to America and back has been honoured by the council. Stewart MacPherson started out as a trainee on a local paper in 1953, before joining the New York Daily News. He returned to work with the Press and Journal, and left a bequest [...]

Urgent appeal to find Moray home for exchange student

STV Forres – A Moray family are being urgently sought to provide a temporary home for an exchange student due to arrive in the area next month. The 17 year old German girl is to attend either Elgin High School, Keith Grammar or Speyside High School as part of an annual exchange programme. Organisers of [...]

Alexander tells of hopes for jobless on visit to doomed air base

Scotsman – CHIEF Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander has praised a new initiative designed to help find new jobs for Moray workers who have lost their employment as a result of the closure of RAF Kinloss as a frontline air base. Mr Alexander, who is MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, yesterday visited [...]

Work Underway at Leanchoil

Forres Gazette – The hospital on St. Leonard’s Road has been closed to overnight patients since January when it was evacuated because of an electrical fault. The long closure led many in Forres to fear it would not re-open. Contractors visited the building last week to draw up a plan of action whilst actual [...]

Danny Alexander to visit RAF Kinloss

STV – Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander is to visit an RAF station in Moray which is to be turned into an army base. Army units will move to RAF Kinloss by about 2014-15. It was earmarked for closure as an air base in the strategic defence review last year. Mr Alexander, Lib Dem MP [...]

Police chiefs issue warning over PMMA drug

BBC – A highly-toxic class-A drug is being sold in Scotland, according to senior police officers. ParaMethoxyMethylAmphetamine (PMMA) has been found in tablets which look like ecstasy. The substance has also been found in drugs being sold as “legal highs” in Scotland. The Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland said it had recovered quantities of [...]

‘Army is worth less than RAF to communities’

Scotsman – PLANS to turn Scottish RAF bases into army barracks will cost the communities around them tens of millions of pounds a year, it has been claimed. The SNP has said that the value of an army barracks for the areas around Kinloss in Moray and Leuchars in North East Fife are worth less [...]

Scotland declares war on knife crime

Daily Record – FIRST-TIME knife offenders will face up to four years in jail under a new crackdown across Scotland. Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland vowed hundreds of knife cases would be treated more seriously from today. And the news delighted anti-knife campaigners. Kelly McGee has campaigned for longer sentences since her Scots Guard brother Paul, [...]

Moray engineering firm FirScot in funding boost

BBC – A Moray precision engineering company is to expand production and create new jobs after securing funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE). FirScot, based at the Greshop industrial estate in Forres, was awarded £193,000. The investment programme will create about eight skilled manufacturing posts over the next three years. The company’s main market [...]

Man who ‘unwittingly’ stole gun jailed for five years

BBC – A thief from Moray who “unwittingly” stole a gun from the house of a widow has been jailed for five years. Guy Whitelaw, 28, from Forres, told police he discovered the handgun in a cash box he took from the house. Whitelaw admitted having the gun and was given minimum jail term for [...]

Moray business leaders meet John Swinney over RAF plan

BBC – Moray’s business leaders are set to meet Finance Secretary John Swinney to discuss the local economy in the wake of the defence review. RAF Lossiemouth was saved from closure under defence cuts which were announced on Monday. RAF Kinloss will shut as an air base and be taken over by the Army. Members [...]

Scottish & Southern Energy to raise its prices

BBC – Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) has become the latest gas and electricity supplier to announce a rise in prices. Its household electricity bills will increase by an average 11%, and its household gas bills by an average 18%, from 14 September. The move comes after British Gas said earlier this month that the [...]

Fox visits surviving RAF air base

BBC – Defence Secretary Liam Fox has visited Lossiemouth in Moray, the day after it was confirmed it would become Scotland’s only surviving RAF base. The Typhoon jet fighter force which was to have been built up at RAF Leuchars in Fife will move to the Moray base. Leuchars and Kinloss, also in Moray, will [...]

The immediate needs of Forres and Kinloss cannot be ignored

STV Forres – Support for the Forres and Kinloss areas remains a priority in spite of the announced conversion of the RAF base for army use. It remains unclear this morning exactly how many troops are to be based at RAF Kinloss, with numbers up to 3,000 being suggested in the aftermath of yesterday’s announcement [...]

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