Jun 182011
 

Members of the City Square Board are currently scratching their heads as to a possible use for the large concourse space which will be created if Union Terrace Gardens is decked over. One possibility under consideration is that it could be used for a new conference centre. However, this does put into question the continuing viability of Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) at Bridge of Don and the major problems which will come about if the AECC is shut down as a result.

Mike Shepherd highlights the problems that the Council is having with the AECC and what could happen next.

The AECC was conceived as a joint venture between Grampian Regional Council and Spearhead Exhibitions Ltd. Aberdeen City Council became its sole owner on the demise of the regional council, and now holds all its shares.
It was opened in 1985 by the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The centre includes a 4800 seat arena, conference facilities and a hotel.

In 2003, the AECC was refurbished at a cost of £18m, with the conference facilities being completely re-built. A large viewing tower was also constructed, one of the tallest structures in Aberdeen.
The AECC is host to Offshore Europe, an event which brings millions of pounds into the local economy. Indeed, I have taken part in conferences and exhibitions there and there is no doubt that the AECC is a major boost to the local economy.

Three major conferences are planned for 2012 – the European Optical Society Annual Symposium 2012, The World Heavy Oil Congress 2012, and The Society of Core Analysts Symposium 2012. As a concert venue it has seen the likes of Bob Dylan and Neil Young play there.

However, the finances of the AECC are a mess.

Although the turnover is about £5M annually, The Press & Journal reported in November 2010 that the Council had provided loans of £28m to the centre in the last five years, as well as £8.85m in subsidies since 1998.
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2002662

Although the AECC has made losses, the Council justifies keeping it going on the basis that it brings a great deal of investment to the region.

Recent years have seen turmoil over audit reports, a restructuring of the Board and talk about receivership. One highly-controversial proposal was that the council should take over a project to build a four-star hotel on the site.

In February 2010 councillors approved plans to underwrite the construction of the hotel.

“AECC bosses have long believed the Centre cannot compete for important international conferences without such a hotel, and want one built in time for its flagship conference, Offshore Europe, next year. The hotel could then be sold for a net profit of between £14million and £20million, which would place the Centre on a firmer financial footing and help clear its debts.”
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1594201#ixzz1Og7YQrIC

Later in the year, they had second thoughts. The Council website reported:

“The full Council meeting accepted that the intended financial package to deliver AECC’s proposed hotel development carried too much risk for the Council because of the current economic climate – and voted by 24 votes to nine that alternative financial structures to deliver the facility should now be sought.

“Aberdeen City Council Leader Councillor John Stewart said: ‘The Full Council today reaffirmed its support for the region’s major conference centre and its commitment to secure a four-star hotel at the venue. However, it has been necessary to re-work the hotel project to minimise risk to the council’.

“The decision follows four months of strenuous efforts to negotiate a deal to create a hotel, involving the City Council, AECC, financial institutions, a construction company, a hotel operator, and legal and technical advisers. The negotiations were carried out following an instruction to Council officers at the February full Council meeting to continue to work with AECC on its hotel proposal, subject to any agreement being acceptable to the Council.”

Many considered the idea of the City Council getting involved in supporting and building a luxury hotel to be somewhat bizarre, one councillor bemoaning,

“The people of Aberdeen will be horrified we are now not only a local authority, but a hotelier as well”.

However, the hotel proposal collapsed as a proposition.

In December 2010, The Press & Journal revealed the conclusions of a secret audit report on the performance of the AECC. Describing its lack of accountability to taxpayers and the City Council as a “critical” risk, the report discovered an unauthorised £1.3m overspend of public money on the failed hotel project.

“The auditors found:

Monitoring of the hotel project by the AECC Board was “weak” – the directors approved £1million but £2.3million was spent.

Only £184,000 of the total was subjected to market testing to ensure best value for money, and no contracts were in place with key parties.

Overall control of the AECC was “weak” and lack of accountability to the Council a “critical” risk.

The report also warned a “significant improvement” in profitability was needed for the AECC to repay £27.7m in loans to the Council in 2017 and 2021.”
http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/2043746#ixzz1Og7Oq2RA

Since then, attempts have been made to try to recoup some of the debt. Parking charges at the AECC are now £5 per car and £10 per coach.

The agenda for a Council committee in January this year also mentioned a report which recommended transferring all property and land assets currently owned or leased by the AECC to the City Council.

This would allow the Council to assume full responsibility for the future development of these assets and investigate the potential for developing the land and property assets through the creation of a joint venture development company charged with developing the assets.

The future of the AECC is moot. The big problem is the £28m debt owed to the Council. If the AECC is shut down, this debt will need to be transferred directly to the Council and I’m told it would be allocated to the revenue budget. Given the severe strain currently on that budget, this would cause major financial problems for the Council.

It seems odd, therefore, that the City Square Board is considering building a convention centre under the City Square (John Stewart, Footdee Community Council meeting, 30/3/11). This could easily bring about the demise of the AECC with the debt problems that would ensue.

Lament For Aiberdeen

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion  Comments Off on Lament For Aiberdeen
Mar 032011
 

By Bob Smith.

Greet fer oor eence great city
Fer Aiberdonians hae great pity
A toon run by a bunch o eeseless feels
A cooncil in the pooch o business chiels

Greet fer oor eence bonnie toon
Faar we’ve bin brocht roon
Ti a city run bi them aat’s rich
Faar protest they wid like ti ditch

Greet fer democracy twixt Don an Dee
A toon faar the cooncillors boo the knee
Kowtowin ti aa thon Acsef bunch
Fit for? Maybe the odd free lunch?

Greet fer the greenbelt an hae a groan
A briggie ti be biggit near Tillydrone
A fitba stadium fit glowes reid
The Loch o Loirston’ll seen bi deid

Greet fer the green lungs o the toon
Faar UTG’s trees wull be cut doon
Ti be replaced by a rich chiel’s vision
Time we aa treated iss wi derision

Fit’s happenin noo we shud lament
An banish oor cooncillors ti Tashkent
Bit lit us nae get ower doon in the moo
We micht yet dunce ti a jig fae Iron Broo

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”2010

 

Dog-fighting – No Room For Complacency In Aberdeen

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information  Comments Off on Dog-fighting – No Room For Complacency In Aberdeen
Feb 252011
 

By Suzanne Kelly.

The Council said organised dog-fighting is not happening here (at least they put that in writing to me a few years back).
The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the BBC and the police are not so sure.  Back in 2007 there was an allegation that men were deliberately hunting the streets of Aberdeen with Staffordshire type dogs, looking for cats for the dogs to attack.

There was the recent incident in Seaton where a pet cat was held down by two men so a dog could savage it. Unfortunately, the police don’t seem to have found anyone for this crime yet.

Dog-fighting equipment and dogs were found in several areas north of Aberdeen not long ago as well. Two swans were recently found badly injured near Bridge of Dee (they are recovering), and on 14 February a swan was found in this same area – dismembered.  While this last crime (injuring wild animals is a criminal offense) must have been done by a person, it was in the same general area that the dog-injured birds were found. Given these incidents it seems we do have a problem. The problem can be solved if people come forward and let the authorities know (anonymously if they wish) who is involved.

It is bad enough that there is such a visible increase in the number of dogs which could be classified as ‘pit bull cross breeds’ or ‘fighting type dogs’ under the Dangerous Dogs Act. In addition, many of the dogs in the ‘dangerous’ category which we see on the street are not on a lead and a few seem to be owned by people who are simply not interested in the dog’s welfare. The Dangerous Dogs Act was intended in part to counteract the proliferation of types of animals which were frequently involved in incidents where people were injured.

The psychological makeup of the people involved in dog fighting makes them a danger not just to animals, but to people as well

A dog ring in England was broken up not long ago; the dogs were trained to exhaustion, given live cats and other animals to tear to shreds alive and were made to fight in a pit in a woman’s back garden.

Dog-fight attendees are known to film the dogs torturing cats on mobile phones – the purpose of the cats is to rile the dogs up to fight.

If the dogs would not fight (and frankly, any well-treated dog does not normally want to attack another animal), they were tortured with electric shocks.  In one case which involved nationals of several European countries, an English woman in was eventually jailed and fined. Dog-fighting is (obviously) illegal, and penalties include jail and fines – but some say the existing law is not strong enough.

The psychological makeup of the people involved in dog fighting makes them a danger not just to animals, but to people as well. They are detached from suffering, concerned only with money the dogs earn for them;  have abnormal emotional development that make the fights seem ‘thrilling’ and such people are completely ‘beyond the pale’ of what is acceptable behaviour. Getting these people identified, and hopefully convicted will make animals as well as people safer.

The Dangerous Dogs Act saw four types of animal outlawed – but there are now so many cross breeds, it is virtually outdated to say that the fighting is limited to any one breed at all.  As far as breeding goes, a bitch will be bred constantly to produce puppies, kept in complete confinement. One day the exhausted bitch will be so weakened that she and her last litter will be killed, and another bitch takes her place.

This ‘killer instinct’ is drilled into the pups from their first hours.

They are treated with great cruelty, forced into gruelling exercise regimes (which kills some of them in the process), beaten, starved, tortured and ‘rewarded’ by being given live animals to maul.

There is absolutely no place for dog-fighting or for anyone involved in this inhumane, illegal crime in a civilised society.

It is important to remember that even well-treated dogs have ‘turned’ – and attacked, mauled, and killed people – and statistics for these types of attacks are rising year on year. Dogs that have been treated cruelly to deliberately make them vicious are a serious threat to everyone’s safety.

A massive raid in 2007 in Merseyside saw twenty-eight dogs rescued from this fighting culture, and dozens or arrests, brought about by the public confidentially contacting police and animal welfare organisations.

When to call the authorities:

  • Do you see any dogs bearing obvious scarring?
  • Are dogs, cats or other small animals in your neighbourhood disappearing?
  • Do you hear the sounds of animals in pain?
  • Neighbours acting suspiciously and keeping either dangerous dogs or large amounts of dogs?
  • Has a neighbour with a dangerous dog suddenly not own the dog any longer?
  • Suspect something however tenuous?

Scottish SPCA Chief Superintendent Mike Flynn said:

“We believe that any dog, regardless of its breed, can be made aggressive through an owner’s lack of training or through deliberate encouragement of bad behaviour.

“The breeding, trading and owning of a dog banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 is not only extremely irresponsible and reckless but is also a criminal offence. Anyone caught doing so can expect to face prosecution and a court may order the destruction of the dog.

“We rely on members of the public contacting us as soon as they become aware of any information relating to dog fighting and urge them to contact our animal helpline on 03000 999 999. We can assure people that all calls are dealt with in strictest confidence and information can be left anonymously.”

Just to get the message home:  anyone with information or with any possible tips – however large or small about animal cruelty should call the SSPCA animal helpline on 03000 999 999.  You don’t have to give your details and any information just might stop animal cruelty.