News - Aberdeen Voice

Garden Of Earthly Delights?

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 032012

January and February always seem to represent a low time in the year. Christmas and New Year have been and gone and there seems little to look forward to. The days remain short and the nights long. It’s usually raw cold. Unwelcoming. The opening months of the year always cause something of a gloom to hang over Mick Miller’s household. Bung in a global recession for good measure and things seem pretty bleak. Then it got worse. What’s up, Mick?

The post arrived on Monday and out of the two-for-one pizza offer junk mail fell a gaudy catalogue.
Only it wasn’t a catalogue – it had “VOTE” written on it. Promotional blurb for the City Gardens Development.

How profoundly depressing. The front ‘cover’ illustration is of some futuristic landscape from another place.
Only on closer inspection it isn’t. It’s Aberdeen, or, more accurately, a version of Aberdeen which can only have be conceived in cloud cuckoo land.

Real people, in a REAL garden.

It’s lurid, horribly-coloured, glib and vacuous. It is pervaded by a complete sense of the unreal. Semi-transparent people wander aimlessly inside a cartoon-flowered version of reality. Children trample unrestrained, yet the flowers survive.

Out-of-scale human forms laze in some sort of airborne meadow whilst below them, in a throwback connection to the real world, trade waste bins lurk ominously. A woman of Amazonian proportions accesses a laptop whilst sitting on surprisingly unbending grass stems. The remnant spire of the Triple Kirks emerges from a scrubland of low growth stock image shrubbery.

It all looks vaguely ill-tended, neglected, as if within this futuristic vision lie the discards of the past. Or perhaps its a tacit admission that should, god forbid, this monstrosity go ahead, there is just no way that the upkeep will be affordable. Delving deeper, the background is found to comprise of a realigned His Majesty’s Theatre and a hugely-inflated and decapitated William Wallace. A victim of the guillotine perhaps?

But the history, like the whole of this charade, is just plain wrong. Landscape dressed up as farce. A cityscape for Anywhereville. Inaccurate. Disjointed. A cut-and-paste pastiche.

Opening up, things don’t improve. A drab labyrinth of pathways which look like bridges over a motorway, criss-cross manicured lawns and monoculture grasslands. In one image the sun sets….or does it rise? Either way, it’s in the wrong place. What on earth, if we are still on earth, is going on? This is lazy work, a Standard Grade project gone catastrophically wrong. Everything is confusing.

The front page image shows a gaudy flower bed appearing to lie on a lower level of the structure. Moving inside the pamphlet the same floral, er…..’bombshell’, is miraculously elevated. Or is it that those bloody bins are just absolutely HUGE? I’m confused, disturbed even.

I’m going to have a lie down, maybe I’ll feel better and ‘it’ will all have been a bad dream. Only it won’t. It isn’t.

In the sunset image, an oddly-inclined piece of lawn totters precariously into the largely obliterated Denburn valley. In Woody Allen’s Manhatten, a character in a TV show is observed to have a toupee so badly-placed on his scalp that it looks like it has been dropped on to his head from a great height in an uncontrolled way.

This elevated savanna has the same feeling about it. There will be a need for avalanche warnings in the snowy depths of winter.

In another image, a pipe band plays beneath a Formica-lined dome with random cut-outs that give the feeling that the design is based on half a panelled football booted around Pittodrie of a Saturday afternoon. Below this, a winter scene shows people so cold they have started to vapourise as, it would appear, has the Formica football, associated terraces and denuded trees, miraculously large for such a recent planting.

A lone child in a blue jacket has something so contagious that the populace in the foreground seek to distance themselves as quickly as possible. Is he the cause of the vapourisations? Oh I get it – we’re on the set of War of the Worlds and soon tattered clothing will rain down upon us from the sky. I know that was the only good bit. It all has an apocalyptic feel. I’m going to have a lie down, maybe I’ll feel better and ‘it’ will all have been a bad dream. Only it won’t. It isn’t.

Aberdeen is a beautiful city, notwithstanding some recent disastrous architectural additions. It doesn’t need or deserve such ill-thought out attentions as this abomination.

Union Terrace Gardens are an integral part of what allows Aberdeen to maintain its architectural, cultural and civic dignity. The Gardens need some tender loving care, but they don’t need annihalation by the ‘solution’ that this tacky pamphlet proposes.

A heartfelt plea. Please, people, don’t let this thing go ahead. Make sure you vote to retain Union Terrace Gardens.

Willows Open Day 18.02.12 – Top Musicians Support Charity

Aberdeenshire, Articles, Charity, Community, Events, Information, News No Responses »

Feb 032012

With thanks to Jenny and Kate at Willows

Willows Animal Sanctuary invite you to come along to an open day on 18 February from 12 noon to 4.00 pm.

Willows Patron Sandi Thom will arrive around 1pm, and autographed photos will be for sale with all profits going to Willows. Lush Aberdeen have generously donated a collection of treats to be raffled off.
There will be baked goods, ferrets and many more of the great variety of creatures that live at Willows will be on show – farm, domestic and wild animals are all given a shelter, and no healthy animal is ever put down.

In addition, legendary singer Paul Rodgers, founding member and songwriter from Free and Bad Company and member of The Firm; and his wife Cynthia sponsored 13 of Willows Animals for Christmas.

Paul said:-

“We heard the unusual story about the piglet Babe and her great escape and dug a little deeper to find that all of the animals were in need of sponsoring.”

Paul has also donated 100 copies of his latest DVD “Live in Montreux Paul Rodgers and Friends” featuring appearances from Queen’s Brian May, Journey’s Neal Schon, Jason Bonham and others.

Signed copies of Paul’s DVD are available at £25 from Willows online shop. Details of Willows at http://www.willowsanimals.com/ and DVD details/order form at http://shopatwillows.com/shop/catalog/search?shop_param , so even if you can’t make it to Willows on the 18th, you can still get a signed DVD.

Willows Animal Sanctuary is the largest sanctuary in Aberdeenshire and will try to help any animal in distress. We operate a strict no kill policy and only euthanise an animal on veterinary advice.

We look after over 300 animals including around 60 horses, ponies and donkeys, approximately 60 cats and dogs and many reptiles as well as over 100 farm animals and birds.

We are totally dependent on donations, legacies and grants from benevolent organizations to keep the sanctuary running.

We are entirely funded by public support and receive no government funding. Unlike larger charities we have no reserves of money and are desperately short of funds. We specialise in helping elderly or more vulnerable animals that have already been refused help by well known large national charities, but we can only continue to help needy animals with your support!

The Animal Assisted Therapy Unit at Willows

Willows helps many vulnerable people with its animal assisted therapy programme. The concept of allowing rescued animals to help vulnerable people on the road back to health is very innovative and has been independently evaluated and shown to be highly beneficial.The therapeutic placements and corporate team building days include equine management, animal husbandry, therapeutic music sessions, drama, bushcraft and mediaeval re-enactment Please contact us if you would like more details.

Willows Animal Sanctuary is situated on the road between New Pitsligo and Strichen (B9093)

Old Susannah No. 66 – Ground Hog Day

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Feb 032012

It’s the American holiday Ground Hog Day this week, and Old Susannah wonders if she’s not reading the same old stories over and over again in the local news. By Suzanne Kelly.

Happy Ground Hog Day! In America people eagerly await the movements of groundhogs on 2 February (everyone has to have a hobby I guess), and allegedly can predict whether there will be an early spring by what the little things do. Ground Hog Day was also a Bill Murray film wherein he kept reliving the same events over and over again.

As I read the Evening Express and the Press and Journal, I wonder if the same old stories aren’t coming back again and again just like Ground Hog Day. Another car crash, more pictures of cute babies and cute pets, potholes and personal health stories I’d rather not read.

And of course Union Terrace Gardens stories have sprouted up faster than the ’rare’ pine forest the architects have now drawn fully mature in their ‘vision’ of the concrete future. Guess the pines should appease all those environmental-type people.

I had really wanted to ‘keep off the grass’ and spend one week not writing about the City Gardens Project. However, the issue continues to dominate our local newspapers, other than a few car accidents and cute pictures of babies and/or pets, there’s nothing else in the local news.

On the other hand our bus fares have gone up – by about £150 per year for weekly pass users. This is to pay for all the improvements – the increased reliability, cleanliness, and improved frequency and so on that you are experiencing. No doubt you likewise received a pay rise of 15% or more, so you don’t mind stumping up more for First Buses. I hear their owners are a bit hard hit by the recession, and heating mansions isn’t as cheap as it used to be.

Last week I was one of the deputees at the City Council’s great vote on shovelling money into the City Gardens Project. If you’re interested in what I had to say, here’s a link: http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/

I spoke for 10 minutes, and answered 10 minutes of questions from our elected officials. Councillor McCaig repeated the promise made by Alex Haig the Scottish Infrastructure Secretary that the project will NOT go ahead if the people vote against it in the referendum. We shall see.

But back to the Ground Hog Day theme. Sir Alex Ferguson has stepped up to the plate concerning Union Terrace Gardens: he’s in favour of the garden scheme (and ‘scheme’ seems like the operative word) going ahead, per the Evening Express. But haven’t we heard from him on this score before? Yes we have – several times. You have a feeling of déjà vu for a reason.

You can usually tell something is a fact if an authority figure tells you it is true

The pro City Gardens teams are still ramping up with their fantastic, well-planned campaigns. The people in Aberdeenshire were the first to receive the glossy, beautiful (not at all fifties retro, dated, overly busy) A3 colour brochures telling them why they must vote for the City Gardens Project.

It was such a heart-breaking pity to realise that no one in the Shire gets a vote.

Easy mistake. I just wonder exactly who has paid for these brochures and this little mistake. But this lovely piece of campaigning literature (for which we don’t know who wrote, created, paid for) leads nicely to a definition or two.

Facts: (plural noun; Eng) data based on measurable, demonstrable truths and observable phenomenon.

A triangle has three sides. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. The City Gardens Project will create 6,500 jobs and make Aberdeen £122,000,000 every year for about 20 years. All these are examples of facts.

You can usually tell something is a fact if an authority figure tells you it is true. If you read something in print, it must be true as well. All those lovely brochures that went to the Shire residents (who can’t vote on the issue) tell you to vote for for 6,500 jobs and all the millions of pounds the Teletubbie Park will bring.

Who would vote against these great things? It’s not as if these figures for an as-yet unfinished design with no price tag on it are just wild, bloated fictional guesses paid for by, er, organisations that want this building project. Or are they?

My favourite part of the brochure is the transparent boy running through the flower bed in front of the theatre. If it were to scale, the wee lad is about 27 feet tall.

If you still aren’t sure what is fact and what is fiction, here’s an example from ACSEF meeting minutes from 22 March 2010:-

“Reassurance was given that the consultation report commissioned by Scottish Enterprise on behalf of ACSEF will be independent, and the consultation process had been robust and transparent”.

Even if the electronic voting went a bit strange, and even if all of the entities involved in ‘reassuring’ that the report would be ‘independent’ wanted the garden project to go ahead, it was all ‘robust and transparent’. (and that’s a fact).

You can’t say Aberdeen doesn’t have its fair share of celebrities

Another favourite fact of mine was when Sue Bruce left Aberdeen and claimed in a press release that our city had a budget surplus of a few million pounds after she’d done her bit. (Yes, I miss her, too). Pity the budget surplus didn’t even last as long as she did here.

Celebrity: (noun or adjective) fame, or being famous. You can’t say Aberdeen doesn’t have its fair share of celebrities: There is Sir Alex Ferguson, Annie Lennox, Scotty from Star Trek, an’ tha quine fae Torry wi the accent naebody kens fa’s on ‘River City’ [Editor: am I getting the hang of Doric yet? Suz].

But alas: no longer can Aberdeen lay claim to being the home of ‘Willie’ – school janitor from ‘The Simpsons’. Willie is apparently from The Orkneys. The Evening Express carried this exclusive this week – I think they did a telephone interview with Willie or something. DOH!

At least we still have Mr Scott, and of course our own talking cactus, Spike. Neither has yet released statements through their agents or directly as to their view of Union Terrace Gardens. Annie Lennox has in the past stated that it’s up to Aberdonians to vote for what they want, but that she is a supporter of the gardens as they are.

She is clearly not as vibrant, dynamic and forward-looking as the much more hip Sir Alex Ferguson. Sir Alex took a break from throwing football boots at players’ heads long enough to yet again pop up in the press in favour of the skateboard park – sorry granite web. In the Evening Express Sir Alex is reported as saying:-

“I would urge everyone not to be scared of change and to look upon this as an opportunity and something which will allow Aberdeen to be favourably compared with cities both in the UK and further afield”

Well, we can safely assume his friend Stewart Milne looks at the gardens as being ‘an opportunity.’

Perhaps Sir Alex has hit it on the head (which he’s good at doing): I’m really just scared of change. I’m not scared of killing off the existing wildlife by removing the vital feeding and living grounds the wildlife depends on. I’m not scared of destroying beautiful, listed, healthy 200 year-old trees that clean the surrounding air. I’m not even scared of the city taking a £70 million (or probably more) gamble on an as-yet untried financial gambit: Nope, I’m just scared of change.

As to how the granite web will make Aberdeen compare to other cities and places, I’d suggest that Milton Keynes, Siberian work camps and Ceausescu’s Romanian architectural projects would be the best place to start.

I think I’ll leave it there for now. Keep a look out for your full colour brochure from the pro City Garden Project now, won’t you. It should arrive any day now (if you live in Yorkshire). You may wonder who printed it and who stands proudly behind its facts. You may wonder for quite some time, as they didn’t bother to say who they were on this flyer.

There is a helpful web address on it, even if it doesn’t work at the time of writing, I’m sure that’s just another one of the few dozen small errors that’s hit the publicity campaign.

Question: if the people supporting this project are throwing your money around on inaccurate full colour A3 leaflets that are going to the wrong houses today, what will they do with a giant architectural project tomorrow?

- Next week: disappearing press releases, Press Complaints Commission, and Code of Practice for Public Relations Agencies – and more.

Trees

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Feb 032012

By Bob Smith.

Trees are fair perfection
Shapes ti please the ee
Soughin in the gintle breeze
Hames fer the birdies ti

Green fin in first canopy
Syne gold in autumn’s glow
Stark fin in winter’s depths
Gales blaw them ti and fro

Shelter ti a traiveller
Fae the faain rains
Hivven ti danderin luvvers
Waakin doon widdit lane

Deein leaves fae the trees
Turn inti a gweed mould
Gairdeners ken the value o
Aat fit is naitur’s gold

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2012
Image Credit: Mike Shepherd

Money’s Too Tight To Mention

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion No Responses »

Feb 032012

Mike Shepherd examines the potential for cost over-run on the City Garden Project and asks …

Where’s the money coming from?

Money’s Too Tight To Mention is the title of a 1980’s Valentine Brothers pop song covered by Simply Red.

It is also thematic of the City Garden Project (CGP), the controversial proposal to develop Union Terrace Gardens.

The nominal costs for the project are £140m, of which it has been proposed that the private sector provides £70m and Aberdeen City Council borrows £70m through a tax scheme to fund the rest.

A commonly-asked question over the last three years has been, “Who pays for any cost over-run if the project runs out of money?” It is a question that has never been properly addressed and it now looks as if the answer is: “there is no obvious source of money should the costs exceed £140m”.

At a public meeting at Cults Academy in May 2010, it was stated that the Council would pay any excess costs. A month later, Sue Bruce, the then chief executive, decreed at a council meeting that the Council would most certainly not pay for any cost over-run and put the responsibility on to the private sector. This has been the understanding ever since.

At this stage, there are no identified funds should costs ramp up.

However, the private sector has managed to raise no more than £55m of promised funding for the CGP to date. Assurances have been made to the Council that £70m will be on the table and this sum’s availability is one of the conditions for the CGP progressing to the planning stage.

At last week’s council meeting, the question of potential cost over-run was put to Colin Crosbie of the Aberdeen City Garden Trust, the organisation created to take the CGP through to the construction phase. Colin mentioned that the project costs will be less than the nominal £145m and that this gives a built-in margin. The intention is also to put rigorous project and cost management in place.

There could be a problem in finding funds above the projected £70m private sector input. It appears that local businesses are concerned about public goodwill should they be seen to contribute money for the controversial project.

At this stage, there are no identified funds should costs ramp up. One obvious solution is that Sir Ian Wood could make a guarantee to handle this, but there is no sign of this happening as yet.

Could costs over-run on the City Garden Project?

One group of professionals have expressed severe misgivings about the potential for cost over-run on the City Garden Project. Architects.

Scottish architects met at a convention in 2010, and in a straw poll, almost unanimously rejecting the Aberdeen proposal, stated that:

“The costing is absurdly light, making this proposal both technically extremely difficult and financially potentially draining.”
- See: http://www.urbanrealm.co.uk …_delegates_unanimously_reject City_Square_plans

Neil Baxter, secretary of the RIAS, the professional body for Scottish architects, has also said:

“A further significant concern is the much-publicised budget for this proposal. You will be well aware that the highest profile architectural competition in Scotland in recent years was that for the Scottish Parliament and the lengthy and difficult process which ensued from the risible budget initially set for that endeavour. Considering that, in recent years, buildings of comparable scale in Aberdeen and elsewhere in Scotland on straightforward urban sites have cost easily twice the quoted budget figure for this particularly problematic and challenging site we would be very concerned about launching a competition based upon such a questionable budget.”
- See: http://fraserdenholm.blogspot.com/2010_05_01_archive.html

I talked to one architect who had concerns about the allocated budget for the scheme. He told me that the project has “cost over-run written all over it”. There are two tricky areas:

The project involves a large amount of rock and soil extraction from the site, whilst shoring up both Union Terrace and Rosemount Viaduct.
It is not easy to build over an existing railway line.

The latter concern possibly derives from a previous situation in the south of England, where a tunnel built to support a new Tesco store above a railway line collapsed. This caused a five-year delay to the original project.
- See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrards_Cross_Tunnel

What would happen if costs massively over-run?

As mentioned, there are no obvious sources of funds identified to handle any cost over-run above £140m. Aberdeen City Council certainly can’t afford it and the private sector is cash-limited at present. Should it occur, the most likely situation is, to save costs, not everything would be built. Failing that, the project would come to a halt if there is no money left to proceed.

In this instance, there could be a half-built steel and concrete shell where Union Terrace Gardens used to be, clearly the worst case scenario. This would also have the unfortunate effect of causing the tax scheme, underpinning the council’s borrowing, to collapse. This is based on the CGP creating new businesses in the city to provide rates to pay off the £70m loan.

Without a completed project, the Council will be left to service a massive loan. This would be a disaster on a horrendous scale.

The ever-present potential for massive cost over-run on the CGP is a major concern and without a clear plan and identified funds to handle excessive costs, the project is far too risky to consider.

Aberdeen City Council could be sleep-walking to disaster if the scheme gets approved.

Upcoming Events At Peacock

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Events, Featured, Gigs and Concerts, Information No Responses »

Feb 032012

With thanks to Kylie Roux.

YOUR LEANING NECK – SONG AS PORTRAIT – Steven Anderson

Based on an event from November last year at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Your Leaning Neck is a performance project that aims to challenge institutional representations of national identity by giving voice to non-institutional values.

A silent video installation showcasing last November’s event from two perspectives will be shown in the Peacock gallery.

Saturday 18 February – Saturday 10 March

- Live Performance

Starting off at Peacock’s gallery then moving onto the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St Andrew, visitors will be treated to a live re-contextualisation of the performance event created as a site-specific response to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s collection of portraits from the Scottish Enlightenment. Within the performance, oral tradition singers are presented alongside contemporary artists who also use their unaccompanied voice as a means of expression.

Friday 24 February | 7 – 9pm | Peacock Visual Arts | FREE

GIG IN THE GALLERY – Martin John Henry

Recently praised by Sound-Scotland, as “one of Scotland’s finest songwriters”, Gargleblast Records and Peacock Visual Arts present Martin John Henry.

The Lanarkshire born singer songwriter is best known for fronting Scottish Rock Band De Rosa – critically lauded and championed by John Peel and Steve Lamaq – as well as writing, recording and playing with many of Scotland’s finest musicians including Barry Burns (Mogwai), Robert Johnston (Life Without Buildings), King Creosote and Malcolm Middleton.

Saturday 4 February | 8pm | £8 on the door

RESIDENCY/PERFORMANCE – ONE MAN UNIT – Paul Wiersbinski and Wieland Schönfelder

ONE MAN UNIT is a hybrid of man and sculpture. Through a variety of outputs, audiences are invited to interact with and experience the spontaneous and unexpected developments of this creative beast, as it evolves during the artists’ two-week residency at Peacock.
You can follow the construction of this half man half machine via their daily blog on Peacock’s Facebook page. The ONE MAN UNIT will then be let loose on the public on two occasions:

Saturday 28 January – Friday 10 February

- Note: Aberdeen Voice updates Peacock info periodically, but there may be recently added events not included in this post. Please contact Peacock direct for the latest information.

Peacock Visual Arts
21 Castle Street
Aberdeen
AB11 5BQ
Tel: 01224 639539
Mob: 07947 490626
e: kylie@peacockvisualarts.co.uk
Website: www.peacockvisualarts.com
Online Print Store: www.peacockvisualarts.culturelabel.com

Think Of A Number

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Featured, Information, News, Opinion No Responses »

Jan 272012

The business case for TIF and the City Garden Project by Mike Shepherd

The Technical Feasibility Study for the City Square Project was published in 2009. A key problem area was identified early on:

“The difficulty in quantifying the economic gain is considerable. To describe the benefits in cultural and civic terms and to focus on the future raison d’être of the City of Aberdeen will become the means of explaining the benefits. However it is very difficult to make these benefits seem tangible. Yet this is precisely what will have to be done for a proposal to succeed.”

Three years later, and with the scheme rebranded as the City Garden Project, they are still struggling to give any clear explanation for the economic benefit.

The business case for Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) was presented to Council on Wednesday. TIF is a mechanism whereby a local authority borrows money from central government funds to finance a development project. Any new business rates created by the project are used to pay off the loan and interest. It is intended to act as a self-financing mechanism.

The City Garden Project has a nominal cost of £140m, of which the promised private sector contribution is £70m. Aberdeen City Council is being asked to underwrite a £70m loan through a TIF scheme. This is part of a larger plan to redevelop the city centre which includes knocking down St Nicholas House, the Denburn car park and health centre area.

The TIF business case presented to councillors is, however, seriously flawed.

http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=18350

An Attractive Aberdeen

The main justification for the City Garden Project is that it would apparently create a high quality city centre to make Aberdeen more attractive. This is supposed to act to retain and draw in energy and other professionals, together with an increased number of visitors.

“Research shows that talented people choose place rather than job when making location decisions. As an Energy City, Aberdeen competes for skilled people with….areas like Abu Dhabi, Kuala Lumpur, Houston and Perth (Australia).”

Yet, a survey published two months ago makes this claim somewhat questionable.

“ABERDEEN has been rated one of the world’s top cities to live in for the second year in a row, a survey published today reveals. Quality of life in the Granite City is ranked above that of Hong Kong, Los Angeles, Houston and Dubai in the study, which is used by governments and multinational firms to help decide where to send staff.”

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2536835

Jobs Creation

Most controversial is the claim that regeneration of the city centre could create 6,500 jobs.

The report sets out how his figure was derived. A questionnaire was sent out by the Council to companies and a small number of interested parties in Aberdeen with the intention of assessing the economic impact of the city centre redevelopment. One of the target groups comprised key developers, land owners and agents. Of the 35 parties in this group, only one replied to the questionnaire. They then contacted all remaining 34 developers by phone. Even then, when directly approached, only six of the 34 were prepared to speak to them.

Unfortunately this question did not garner any responses

The developers were asked ‘to identify the extent to which the delivery of each of the five development schemes would result in uplift in development potential for housing, retail outlets, office space, business units, hotels, tourism and leisure in the City Centre’.

However:

“No respondents identified the project as having any impacts on the development potential for business/industrial units in the City Centre”.

Then:

“The next question in the survey requested developers to provide an indication (in quantifiable terms such as the number of units, square footage etc) of the extent to which the identified benefits would impact upon their organisation’s investment plans and/or objectives. Unfortunately this question did not garner any responses as consultees felt it was too soon and/or complex to attribute impacts in these terms.”

That questionnaire wasn’t that much help then.

“Additionally it was apparent that individual developers and other respondents identified potential uplifts in activity and recognised that the timing of investments would be brought forward as a result of TIF. However, many of these developers still had expectations that, irrespective of future economic conditions or City Centre Regeneration Scheme (CCRS) , their specific sites will be taken forward. It was apparent that individual developers and other respondents identified potential uplifts in activity and recognised that the timing of investments would be brought forward as a result of TIF. However, many of these developers still had expectations that, irrespective of future economic conditions or CCRS, their specific sites will be taken forward.” (HA!)

SO WHAT DID THEY DO NEXT ?

“In balancing these different responses (i.e. CCRS will act as a stimulus to market uplift in general versus developers views that each individual site is likely to be taken forward anyway) the Council, ACGT Enterprises and their advisors have initially assumed a profile of development under the no CCRS scenario whereby:

“None of the cultural, leisure or retail elements of the CCRS projects will be taken forward;

“At least one major site totalling 0.720 million square feet will be taken forward in the anticipated timescales projected by developers regardless of CCRS; and,

“On the remaining sites identified, 1.369 million square feet will go forward without TIF over the 25 year period considered, but such developments will lag, on average, three years behind the profile assumed with CCRS.

“On the remaining sites identified, 2,029 million square feet of development (out of total development potential of 3.468 million square feet) will not go forward without the CCRS, over the proposed 25 year TIF period.”

THIS IS THE KEY BIT

“the Council, ACGT Enterprises and their advisors have initially assumed a profile of development “

AND THEN …

Took the 2,029 million square feet figure, multiplied it by ‘standard job density ratios,’ and came up with 6,500 jobs.

Assumptions?

So what happened next?

“In balancing these different responses (ie CCRS will act as a stimulus to market uplift in general versus developers views that each individual site is likely to be taken forward anyway) the Council, Aberdeen City Garden Trust Enterprises and their advisors have initially assumed a profile of development under the no CCRS scenario whereby:

…. 2,029 million square feet of development (out of total development potential of 3.468 million square feet) will not go forward without the CCRS, over the proposed 25 year TIF period.”

The footage was multiplied by standard figures which relate development area to the number of jobs likely to be created, hence 6,500 jobs.

The key word here is ‘assumed’. An exercise in speculation somehow translated into a press statement that the City Garden Project will create 6,500 jobs. This wild claim led to much scepticism. It was pointed out that the London Olympics are only predicted to create 3,000 new jobs.

The Risks

The discussion on project risks is somewhat lightweight. One concern is the possibility of massive cost over-run on the project. The report even tacitly recognises the possibility:

“It has demonstrated with the redevelopment of Marischal College that it can have a major project delivered on time and under budget. This is a rare accomplishment in such large projects.”

In June 2010, I gave a deputation to a Council meeting where I asked who would pay for any cost over-run on the City Garden Project. The then Chief Executive, Sue Bruce, decreed that the private sector would pay, not the Council. Since that meeting, there has clearly been little progress on the matter. The report mentions that:

“Before entering into any TIF arrangement, ACC will endeavour to structure an arrangement with its private sector contributors that minimises ACC’s risk exposure.”

The Council should walk away from the project unless it gets a legally-binding commitment from the private sector to cover all costs of any project over-run. The major financial problems caused in Edinburgh Council as a result of the projected £200m-plus overspend on the trams project should be foremost in councillors’ minds, one would hope.

TIF can be a risky way to borrow money. The risks are understood by the Council:

“For most TIF projects the most significant risk would be in relation to the business rates identified not materialising or being delayed. This would result in ACC having insufficient revenues available through the TIF mechanism to service and repay their borrowings.”

There is another risk. The loan will be in place for a period of 25 years, gradually being paid off, it is hoped, by new business rates. Like a mortgage, interest will accrue on the unpaid part of the loan. The business case assumes an interest rate of 5.2% over the 25 year period. Should interest rates rise by only 1%, then there will be a predicted shortfall of £20.7m left to pay after 25 years.

Careful reading of the TIF business case for the City Garden Project shows that it is based on unexplained assumptions, optimistic extrapolations and will involve financial risk for the Council. Yet the public are being told otherwise.

Tuesday’s ‘Press & Journal’ quoted a City Garden Trust director, who mentioned they had polled 50 people in Aberdeen. Those against the City Garden Project had said the city could not afford the project.

“When the funding was explained and the economic benefits outlined, ten of these people changed their minds. “

This is what I would have told them instead.

“Your house needs doing up, you are heavily in debt, you can barely find the cash for the essentials in life. Should you take out an enormous mortgage for a new patio and garden? No!”

Host In Tears As Trump Film Gets US Broadcast

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, News No Responses »

Jan 272012

One of America’s biggest stars, Rosie O’Donnell, has admitted to millions that she was “moved to tears” by the hit feature documentary You’ve Been Trumped when the film’s director was the main guest on her show last week.

Footage of what the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) described as filmmaker Anthony Baxter’s “violent arrest” was broadcast across America for the first time.

The broadcast prompted scores of outraged viewers to hit Twitter and Facebook to voice their anger at the actions of Donald Trump, the Scottish Government and Grampian Police.

On The Rosie Show, Baxter revealed how Freedom of Information requests made by the Sunday Herald have only heightened concerns that Grampian Police “have been acting like Donald Trump’s private security force”. He also accused the force of carrying out a “whitewash cover up enquiry’ into his arrest.

The arrests of Baxter and his colleague Richard Phinney whilst making their film in 2010 prompted fierce criticism from the NUJ. The union described the police’s actions as “a breach of human rights” with “important implications for press freedom”.

Meanwhile, O’Donnell is urging Americans to watch what she describes as “an amazing film”. She admits to crying during the scene where hundreds of people walk across the bulldozed dunes of the Menie Estate, to show of support for local resident Michael Forbes, accused by Mr Trump of “living like a pig in a slum”.

You’ve Been Trumped will be screened again in Chicago on 22 March, prior to its being rolled out for screenings in Europe as well as in Washington DC, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Arizona and other major American cities.

Clips from The Rosie Show…
http://www.oprah.com/rosie/The-Rosie-Show-Rosie-Takes-on-Trump

You’ve Been Trumped has won a total of eight international film festival awards

WINNER: Starz Denver Film Festival, USA
WINNER: Take One Action Film Festival, Scotland
WINNER: Michael Moore’s Traverse City Film Festival, Michigan
WINNER: DaKINO International Film Festival, Bucharest
WINNER: Hamptons International Film Festival, New York
WINNER: Edindocs Film Festival, Edinburgh
WINNER: Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, Nevada City
WINNER: Sheffield International Documentary Festival UK

Michael Moore hand-picked You’ve Been Trumped for his Traverse City Film Festival in Michigan where it won the Special Jury Prize. It is now well on course to be the most successful cinema feature documentary ever produced in Scotland.

Life As A 1950’s Teenager

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, History, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Jan 272012

By Bob Smith.

There’s jist nithing ti dee
Young eens cry in Aiberdeen
Iss wisna muckle o a problem
Fin I wis aroon seventeen
.
There wis cafes bi the dizzen
Faar ye cwid sit an chat
The famous Holburn Cafe
Or maybe the Kit Kat
.
Syne later on alang Union Grove
Ye cwid dander wi ease
An cum upon The Rendezvous
Better kent as Mama G’s
.
I learnt the airt o duncin
At Garlogie, Echt an Skene
Syne twis ti the dunce halls
In bonnie Aiberdeen
.
Wednesdays – Abergeldie Jazz Club
Ti listen or jive ti Sandy West
Setterday – doon ti “The Beach”
Faar Leslie Thorpe wis at his best
.
There wis ither eens o coorse
The Palace, Douglas or the Palais
Faar ye cwid fin a bonnie quine
Ti snog up some dark alley
.
There wis Rock n’ Roll an ballads
Maybe jazz it wis yer choice
Played on the latest record players
Made bi Decca or His Master’s Voice

There wis lots o drainpipe troosers
Sweaters wi necks ca’ed crews
There wis Tony Curtis haircuts
An ticht winkle picker shoes
.
Ti the open air duncin at Hazleheid
Ye wid wanner hand in hand
Ti listen ti the music
Or waltz ti Bert Duff’s Band
.
On Sundays ye’d “waak the mat”
An see lassies bi the score
Maybe ye’d bump inti een
Ye’d snogged the nicht afore
.
There wis hullocks o picter hooses
The Majestic an a haill lot mair
The Capitol an the Astoria
Even hid an organ player
.
Ye ask’d a lassie ti the picters
She wis dolled up ti the nines
Ye really felt a cheapskate
Gyaan in the one an nines
.
The faavrit meetin plaicies
Fer the young an gallus
Wis ootside the “Monkey Hoose”
Or near the statue o William Wallace
.
There wis Eric, Bill, Neil, Ian an me
We fairly thocht we war dashin
Noo we’re aa ower sixty five
An rinnin oot o passion

Aberdeen City Youth Council Hits Out At CGP

Aberdeen City, Articles, Breaking, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, News No Responses »

Jan 272012

Aberdeen Youth Council’s former head Sean Press resigned because of ‘a conflict of interest’, citing his involvement with ACSEF the ‘pro-business and development body [which] is fully supportive of the City Garden Project’ per the Press & Journal. Now Aberdeen City Youth Council, the official voice of young people in the city, has spoken out against the proposed development of Union Terrace Gardens, describing the plans as “unwanted” and “potentially devastating to young people”.

17 year-old office-bearer, Kenneth Watt, comments on the decision:
“It’s not normal for the Youth Council to speak out against the Council like we are doing. However, the decisions made have the potential to be devastating to our generation, and generations to come and we are genuinely worried about the prospect of the City Gardens Project going ahead.”

As a result, the group has registered to submit 300 words in the voter registration pack.

The group also criticised the City Council in its involvement of young people in the decision-making process, after they discovered that only 113 young people from just two schools were consulted with. In the Youth Council’s own consultation 98% of 14-25 year-olds were in favour of retaining the Gardens.

The financial security of the City Gardens Project (CGP) concerns the Youth Council. The Aberdeen City Youth Council (ACYC) are worried by the lack of a plan to cover the possible failure of the risky Tax Increment Funding scheme. After multiple requests for detailed financial information from councillors on the monitoring board were ignored, the group became very apprehensive over the CGP’s feasibility.

Kenneth Watt, an office-bearer in the ACYC says that:

“Young People have been hit hard by spending cuts to key services already; the prospect of facing more in the future is a risk the Council can’t afford to take.”

“Young people need to be listened to and have their questions answered. We’re the ones that will have to foot the bill when the £96million loan can’t be repaid.”

One of the main sufferers of cuts to public services is Aberdeen’s youth. Northfield has the highest rate of child poverty in the north-east of Scotland and the Council cannot commit to such a financially unstable project when they are closing key services to the youth in many areas.

“It is ridiculous for the Council to commit to a £96million loan when vital community services – such as the Mastrick Young People’s Project – are being cut left, right and centre.”

It was claimed that the CGP would reduce crime rates in the city, which young people are frequently blamed for. Both final designs for the CGP have direct access from Belmont Street and Union Street, home to many pubs and clubs. A £170million project of this nature will not cure the violence and crime that Aberdeen faces.

“Voters need to think seriously about the long-term aspect of the City Gardens Project and the financial burden it could easily leave for generations of Aberdonians to come.”

“Union Terrace Gardens is a space that is unique to our city. Our parents have loved the Gardens, we love the Gardens, and – if retained – our children will love the Gardens too.”

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Host In Tears As Trump Film Gets US Broadcast

Life As A 1950’s Teenager

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