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Fairtrade Fortnight In Aberdeen

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Mar 012011

By Sue Good.

Monday 28th February marked the start of Fairtrade Fortnight and supporters all over the UK will be asked to show off their label, the Fairtrade Mark that is now carried by over 4000 products.
The label guarantees that farmers and growers in developing countries have received a fair price for their goods and for many of them, this makes a vital difference between living and simply existing.

The UK leads the way in Fairtrade and awareness about it is particularly high in Aberdeen. This is due in no small measure to the activities of the local organisation known as the Third World Centre, which has been in existence since 1983.

At the end of Fairtrade Fortnight, the retail part of this organisation, the Fair Trade Aberdeen shop in George Street, will close its doors. Since there are so many Fairtrade products being stocked by supermarkets and given the current recession and rise in rental prices, the shop is no longer commercially viable.

However, there may very well be other ways of continuing the Fair Trade business in the future and there is no suggestion that the organisation will disband. The education department, known as the Montgomery Centre, does an increasing amount of work within the whole of the education sector locally and nationally and the campaigning and administration that maintains Aberdeen’s status as a Fairtrade city is also co-ordinated by the organisation.

Local support for this work is increasingly vital. Fairtrade events have always been held during Fairtrade Fortnight and this year is no exception.

On Friday 4th and Tuesday 8th at the shop we will be inviting people to decorate a flag to add to the Fairtrade Foundation attempt at creating the world record length of Fairtrade cotton bunting. The finished product, with flags from all over the UK, will be presented to the World Trade Organisation’s next meeting in Geneva, encouraging them to consider more urgently the plight of cotton farmers in West Africa.

Please do come along and join us between 10am and 4pm on Friday 4th and Tuesday 8th March at Aberdeen’s Fair Trade Shop, 101 George Street.

For more information about Aberdeen Fairtrade, Click here.

Royal Mail – Not For Sale!

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Feb 182011

Members of the Communication Workers Union will be holding a demonstration outside the St Nicholas Centre on Saturday February 26th to raise awareness of proposals put forward by the Government to privatise Royal Mail. Voice’s Stephen Davy-Osborne reports.

The proposal, set out earlier this year, sees the link between Royal Mail and the Post Office Ltd severed as Royal Mail becomes a privatised company, while the Post Office remains in public ownership under a partnership similar to that of the John Lewis Group. These proposals have caused a great deal of concern to those employed by both organisations.

Once privatised, there would be no guarantee of Royal Mail making use of the Post Office network; which is already facing 900 closures up and down the country. Once a vital amenity for any village, town or city; the Post Office has faced increased competition from other companies offering similar services resulting in decline in footfall, and therefore closures.

Alan Robertson, Secretary of the Grampian & Shetland branch of the CWU, is hopeful that further closures and subsequent job losses can be avoided:

“The future of the Post Office Ltd does not have to be gloomy. If the Government stuck to its election promise of putting a fully-blown bank within the Post Office, then it would help secure its future. Last year alone 150 Post Offices shut down. If privatised and not given banking services, then Post Offices will simply wither on the vine and the people who suffer the most will be the elderly, those in remote areas, and the most vulnerable in society.”

people think either it will never happen or it’s a ‘done deal’ – neither of which is true

Demonstrations and marches have been taking place up and down the country over the last few months, with many more yet to come. Just last month following the announcement of the proposed changes, the CWU marched on the constituencies of both David Cameron and Minister for Postal Affairs, Ed Davey, to highlight that privatisation is not in the best interests of Royal Mail or its users.

Members of the Grampian & Shetland branch of the CWU will also be journeying down to London at the end of March to join a march against cuts being organised by the TUC.

Royal Mail has attracted a lot of media attention over the past couple of years, with reports of inefficiencies and huge job losses on the horizon as it sought to compete in a modern market. Despite the bad press, Mr Robertson is confident that things were starting to look up for Royal Mail:

“The long-term problems we have had are already being addressed. Last April our membership ratified a three-year deal that accounts for things like the decline in mail, new machinery and ways of working. This will lead to a significant drop in headcount for our members, but it has been done on a proper basis that will see a more efficient Royal Mail at the end of the three years.”

However, all of these agreed changes, which saw heavy campaigning from the unions to secure a fair outcome for all, could be put in jeopardy by privatisation.

The demonstration outside the St Nicholas Centre will therefore try and raise public awareness and let people know what the results of privatisation would mean to them.

“I believe that most people think either it will never happen or it’s a ‘done deal’ – neither of which is true.” adds Mr Robertson.

For further information and to show your support for one of the nation’s most vital public services, head along to the CWU’s demonstration outside Marks and Spencer, St Nicholas Centre between 11:00 and 13:00 on Saturday February 26th.

Saving The Gardens One T-shirt At A Time

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Dec 312010

With Thanks To Robin McIntosh.

Friends of Union Terrace Gardens, Robin and Sara, ably supported by volunteering members, spent the week prior to Christmas running a stall in the Trinity Centre selling UTG themed gifts such as calendars, sweatshirts, t-shirts and bags.

The presence not only provided a real boost to both our membership and Gardens improvement funds, but provided us with a valuable insight into the general lack of awareness regarding the City Square Project and it’s impact on the Gardens.

Our own aims of improving accessibility for prams and wheelchairs, reopening the toilets and using the Gardens for city community events were universally supported – with most of those who were pro-City Square Project mistakenly believing that the current proposal was solely to deliver these improvements. They were surprised to hear about the Halliday Fraser Munro outline of car parking and bus station. One woman even thought that they would dig up the 200 year old trees and replant them in the new Square!

Said Robin ‘ What a fantastic experience it turned out to be! We met so many wonderful people who are appalled at the plans to develop the Gardens and were desperate to send a message to the Council that this must not progress. One man told us his Uncle had worked in the gardens for many years and had designed the original floral emblem – “he would be turning in his grave at these plans” he sighed.

‘ A big thank you must go to all those who supported this initiative and gave Sara and I a very real sense of people and community, just what Christmas is about.’

Friends of Union Terrace Gardens raised over £1300 from sales at the stall, and wish to thank the Aberdeen public for their generosity, goodwill and support.

Tax Incremental Funding And The City Square

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

Nov 122010

By Mike Miller.

When the City Square Project was originally considered by Aberdeen City Full Council on 19th May 2010 little was known about Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) and indeed, at that time, it was not even a legal mechanism for funding regenerative projects. The origins of TIF are in the United States where it has been a mechanism for funding regenerative project for the past 50 years or so.

Indeed so widespread is its use that the the term ‘regeneration’ is virtually interchangeable with that of TIF.

Its widespread use in the States has led to somewhat strange situations with regeneration centring on a single shed in a field in order for one state to lure WalMart in at the expense of another! This is one of the flaws associated with TIF; potentially all it does is move business from one area in need of regeneration to another as incentives, by way of paid for infrastructure, lure commercial companies across State boundaries.

So is it suitable for the funding proposition that is the ‘regeneration’ of Aberdeen City centre? Well the first question is; does the city centre require regeneration? Sir Ian Wood obviously believes that it does and has proposed to gift the City some £50 million to support the claim. He describes the city centre as ‘second-rate’. The regeneration proposed is very specific – it must be a city square (well actually now a city garden since the public rejected the square concept in the deeply flawed consultation process earlier this year that was driven by ACSEF) with walk on access from all four sides. This will require the engineering of a raised platform thus obliterating the Denburn Valley and destroy the existing city garden in the process. But then you know all this. The key is that the City Square is essentially a civic project and, this is important, will not generate in its own right enough commercial ‘revenue’ to repay any TIF loan (because that is what TIF is – a loan that has to be repaid ) required to fund the infrastructure build.

So how will the TIF borrowing be re-paid? Well the original proposition was that a variety of sites dotted around the city would suddenly become attractive to developers, as a result of the City Square, and the business rates so generated would be used, in part, to repay the TIF. The other element that would contribute would come from the increased business rates generated in areas adjacent to the City Square. Now business rates can only go up because any given business is more profitable as a result of the regenerative project. All sounds good. Apart from its not good at all.

even with the Edinburgh proposals there are risks, more so with a stagnant economy because TIF relies heavily on business taking up the cudgels to build

Firstly the proposal that you can use business rates from properties that have no connection whatsoever with the City Square (for example the Oakbank school site, an original candidate for TIF loan repayment) is nonsense. This author has had conversations with TIF experts at the British Property Federation (whose job, amongst other things, is to promote the use of TIF where appropriate) who indicate quite clearly that you cannot repay TIF in this way.

Interestingly someone at the City Council must have picked up on this too because in the report to the City Council Finance Committee of September 28th it seems to have disappeared as a TIF repayment proposal.

This leaves the mechanism of the increased rates from adjacent businesses. Such TIF repayment is known as loose-coupling. In TIF terms loose-coupling is highly risky. This is because the linkage between TIF funded project and the surrounding rates increases is far from guaranteed. It is worth stressing this as all other TIF proposals in Scotland are closely-coupled. Close coupling is far less risky because the TIF funded infrastructure is directly linked to the development with which it is associated. Here’s an example. In Edinburgh infrastructure (roads, a pier, a marina, etc) are to be built in order to attract in developers to the brown field Leith waterfront to build (note that additional build is happening) some 2,800 homes and 900,000 commercial square footage of new properties that result specifically because of the TIF funded infrastructure.

Hopefully the difference between loose-coupling and close-coupling is clear and the greater viability of what is proposed in Edinburgh self evident. There is (unless you hate development of any kind) nothing wrong with TIF when it is correctly and sensibly applied. Even so everything is not clear cut. John Handley, a regeneration expert, writing in the Scotsman newspaper earlier this year quite clearly indicates that even with the Edinburgh proposals there are risks, more so with a stagnant economy because TIF relies heavily on business taking up the cudgels to build; more uncertain at a time when money is scarce and the need for new office space dubious.

Loose coupling has its place too, where there is blight in an area (i.e. the area is so undesirable and decrepit people have moved out and so have businesses and no one will touch development in its present state as it is completely non-viable), then TIF infrastructure can act to pump-prime an area so that business and residents return and start paying rates and council tax that then repays the loan – but there are still risks. For Aberdeen it makes no sense as no one would describe the centre of Aberdeen as ‘blighted’. There are some empty shop spaces but this is largely normal ‘churn’ and to some extent might actually indicate the over-representation of retail space in the city – is there more capacity than there are shops to fill the available space?

At the Finance committee of 28 September 2010 a paper was presented that sought to indicate that TIF could still be applied to a variety of projects within the city irrespective of whether the City Square project were to proceed.

The frailty of the TIF business case for the Aberdeen City projects has recently been alluded to in an article in Holyrood Magazine

There was some debate regarding the proposals as well there should have been as there are some fundamental flaws in what is being proposed. One potential scheme was for construction of infrastructure by way of a “high quality pedestrian route” with absolutely no indication of how the construction costs of this facility might be repaid; does building a pavement lead to increased business activity in an already prosperous city?

Worryingly for the citizens of Aberdeen, the Council, at a time when swinging budget cuts are to the fore, are seeking to borrow some £200m using TIF. The belief being that they can do so at zero risk to the Council. One presumes that they will seek a commercial sector 3rd party to under-write the borrowing, perhaps by way of a Special Purpose Vehicle, to which assets,including Union Terrace Gardens will be transferred. One cannot help but feel that the proposals are speculative at best and at worst could leave half completed construction projects scattered across Aberdeen – that’ll help the City’s image no end.

The frailty of the TIF business case for the Aberdeen City projects has recently been alluded to in an article in Holyrood Magazine. In the article, The TIF Factor in the 15 October issue, the City Council’s Project Director for Economic and Business Development indicates the risks associated with what is being proposed; the basis of which is that because of the City Square/Garden project, people will suddenly be more inclined to linger in the city centre and spend more (even more!) money. Such a model is dubious at the best of times but with a recession under-way and massive cuts still to come to the pubic sector, this could well be completely the wrong time to attempt such a tenuous approach.

As the Council scuttles around trying to jump onto the TIF bandwagon, bemused citizens are left to look on wondering just what could be achieved with Sir Ian Wood’s generous offer that would genuinely help the city without huge debts being incurred. Union Terrace Gardens could be improved and better access facilitated. St Nicholas House could be demolished and a new city square enabled by the closure of Broad Street; the Wallace Tower could be returned from the oblivion of Seaton Park and the upper deck of the St Nicholas Centre (a precursor of the City Square?) re-invigorated with connection to the new St Nicholas civic space.

This ‘second- rate ‘ blight if cleaned up and removed could give Aberdeen a city centre a face-lift without re-course to the potentially financially crippling projects that the TIF proposals seek to enable. It would also mean that the much loved Union Terrace Gardens need not be lost by insensitive development thus placating the majority who voted in favour of their retention all those months ago.

Mike Miller November 2010

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