Mike Shepherd Archives - Page 5 of 6

Aberdeen A Go-Go – It All Happens In April

Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion Comments Off

Feb 182011

Last year, Aberdeen was posted for sale on eBay. Come April, this may not seem much of a joke any more. Mike Shepherd explains why.

Two major events take place in Aberdeen this April which could change the political and actual landscape of the city for ever, when details of the assets to be transferred to the City Development Company are to be announced. Then on 27 April, the Council meets to approve transfer of a lease for Union Terrace Gardens to the limited company intended to develop the park.

The Aberdeen City Development Company has recently been registered as a limited company. This is a joint venture between Aberdeen City Council and local businessmen. The intention is for the Council to transfer assets into the Company and for both the Council and the private businesses involved to profit share from the development of the assets.

Controversially, although the Council nominally controls the Company, six of the twelve man board will be from business. The chair will be a private sector appointee and will have a casting vote, meaning that there is private sector control of the Company at board level.

The Council has identified 59 assets which could potentially be transferred to the Development Company. Of these, 14 have been short-listed as suitable for development. The Council has not revealed which assets these are, although details should be made available at the April Finance Committee meeting.

The aims of the Company are stated as being charitable, with the idea of using the profits to regenerate the poorer parts of the city. A subsidiary property company will also be formed which will be used to sell off assets considered unsuitable for development by the main company.
https://aberdeenvoice.com/2010/11/aberdeen-for-sale-the-aberdeen-city-development-company/

On April 27, the full Council meets and it is likely that Union Terrace Gardens will dominate the agenda. A timetable for the City Square project was issued for the Council meeting on 6 October last year.
http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=9525

In it, 27 April was earmarked for a vote that seeks approval to lease Council land to the company designated to take the project forward through and beyond planning submission. This company, the Aberdeen City Gardens Trust, was registered as a limited company last month.

I’ve been told by the Council Executive that the Council intends to retain ownership of the land and would probably assign a 125 year lease for the property to the Trust. There is a major drawback to this though. Under recent Scottish Government legislation, it is now possible for someone sitting on a long term lease to convert the lease into outright ownership.

It is likely that the Gardens have been partly built on common good land; however, even this may make no difference. The Edinburgh Evening News recently quoted a Scottish Government Minister as saying that a proposed exemption in this legislation for common good land would open the door to frequent and expensive litigation.

http://news.scotsman.com/news/SNP-opposes-common-good-legal.6714542.jp

It also looks as if the Project Management Board for the City Square is hoping to launch the architectural competition in April. Councillors have been told that there are ‘procurement issues’ in awarding a contract to a suitable company to manage the competition. The company may not be in place before the end of March.

Kevin may have a hard job persuading local voters to support his views

If the launch happens in April, expect a lot of public relations activity to go with this. They will be hoping to drown out the furore that will result from the proposal to transfer the lease.

The Scottish Parliamentary elections will be held on Thursday May 5, only a few days after the April Council meeting. It is almost certain that the fate of Union Terrace Gardens will be a subject of major debate at the hustings. The SNP group leader in the Council, Kevin Stewart, will be standing against the current MSP, Labour’s Lewis Macdonald for the Central Aberdeen seat. Lewis only has a 382 vote majority from the last election and the SNP sees the constituency as one of their top targets. Kevin is a member of the board for the City Garden Project and the SNP councillors have mostly voted for progressing the project in Council votes. Cllr. Muriel Jaffray is a notable exception.

Kevin may have a hard job persuading local voters to support his views on the City Square. A recent poll run by Craig Adams indicated that out of a sample of 1,140 participants, only 87 (7.6%) supported Sir Ian Wood’s scheme.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=2wBkyUzY5LwdryXec_2b936w1BLixjo8dtX4egHwLTFbs_3d

Another event happens in April. The Royal wedding takes place on the 29th and the day has been declared a national holiday. Unless perhaps, you live in Aberdeen. The STV website has reported that Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce is carrying out a survey of its members to find out if they would give staff the day off and found that many firms were undecided.

“The Chamber said that many contracts of employment state an employee is entitled to a fixed number of public holidays so this means they are not entitled to the additional day off. Employees whose contracts state that they are entitled to all public holidays would be entitled to take the day off.”
http://local.stv.tv/aberdeen/news/6233-uncertainty-over-royal-wedding-holiday/

Apart from a few local businessmen, Aberdeen may not be a happy place this April.

The New Board For The City Square Project

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

Jan 072011

By Mike Shepherd.

The ACSEF newsletter for December has announced the new project management board for the City Square Project. The board will be chaired by Council leader John Stewart and there are no surprises in its make-up. A further two members, representing young people and heritage and horticultural issues are being sought.

The board to date comprises:

John Stewart – Leader of the Aberdeen Council

Robert Collier – Chief Executive of Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce

John Michie – Michie the Chemist, Chairman of Aberdeen City Centre Association

Cllr. Kevin Stewart – Deputy Leader Aberdeen Council, SNP candidate for Aberdeen Central Scottish parliamentary elections

Margaret McGinlay – Scottish Enterprise Regional Director for Aberdeen City & Shire. Director of Food and Drink for Scottish Enterprise.

Tom Smith – Chairman of ACSEF, NESSCO Group chief executive (telecommunication company)

Colin Crosby – President of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, consultant with Brewin Dolphin PLC, an investment management company.

Lavina Massie – Chair of the Aberdeen City Alliance (TACA), Culter Community Council vice-chairwoman.

Sue Bruce – Aberdeen Council Chief Executive (leaving for Edinburgh and likely to be replaced).

The presence on the board of SNP leader in the council, Kevin Stewart, is of interest. Kevin will be standing as the SNP candidate for the Central Aberdeen seat in the May Scottish parliamentary elections. The seat is currently held by Labour MSP Lewis MacDonald with a majority of only 382 and is described on the SNP website as one of the party’s top target seats. Kevin will no doubt hope to avoid the City Square becoming an issue in the May election although it is difficult to see how he can avoid this as the full council meets on April 27th – just eight days before the election on May 5th.

it is distinctly possible that any new administration could kill of the project as a priority

The City Square dominates the Council meeting and the agenda is highly controversial including a vote on approving the transfer of the lease of Union Terrace Gardens to the limited company or trust that will take over running the project next year.

The newsletter also gives details of the milestones for the project. These are: Launch of international design competition Spring 2011; Short-listed designs out to public consultation Autumn 2011; Final design selected Spring 2012.

The project is running very late. According to the original timetable issued at the end of June 2010, the design competition was due to be launched on the 1st November last year with the final design to have been selected by the 17th June 2011. One of the big problems with the timetable is that the project will now extend beyond the Council elections in May next year and it is distinctly possible that any new administration could kill of the project as a priority.

Elsewhere in the newsletter, you can read about the so-called benefits of building the new City Square. Some of them are much less than convincing:

“There will be something for everyone.

Green Space : a calm, garden oasis in the heart of the city where you can enjoy the changing seasons

History & Heritage : outdoor and indoor areas for displaying and showcasing our history and heritage. An opportunity to see, touch and feel what is currently hidden away.”

ACSEF are also seeking “some high profile/celebrity endorsers to ‘champion’ the content development for key themes of the project: green space and gardens; leisure and recreation; science and energy; arts and culture; and history and heritage.”

The ACSEF newsletter makes for curious reading. It would be have been thought that the new project board would have been worthy of a press release, but this has not happened to date. It gives the impression of being bullish about the city square but only to the limited circulation of the newsletter amongst business people, politicians and opinion formers.

ACSEF are only too well aware of how controversial the city square is in Aberdeen.

There is a sense here of an organisation running scared from public opinion, at least until the new public relations company for the project starts work in the early part of the year.

The Council would have you believe that the City Square is a done deal; it is anything but. The whole set-up is starting to look shaky; everything is running late; the massive amount of money needed for the square is an obvious problem; many Aberdonians are still very angry about the ignored consultation and the ramifications of this will be put to a true democratic test in two elections this May and next.

ACSEF In Wonderland

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

Dec 252010

By Mike Shepherd.

Here’s a game for your Xmas party – spot the odd one out in this list:
Smersh, Spectre, the Black Hand, the Priory of Sion, Acsef.

The correct answer is of course Acsef. The others are sinister, shadowy organisations bent on world domination, while Acsef is Aberdeen city and shire economic future, the unelected body charged with promoting business development in the Aberdeen region.

Acsef‘s greatest moment has been the long-running saga of Sir Ian Wood’s city square project. The show has been on the go for over two years and looks set to run and run and run. Although whisper this quietly: just like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, it doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere yet.

Acsef helped with the consultation for the scheme and we were all assured “This public consultation aims to find out if you would like to go ahead with the proposal to redevelop Union Terrace Gardens and the Denburn Valley to create a new civic space and gardens.” Ha!

We were also told that we could get a modern city square that looked like the ones in Melbourne, Chicago and Houston. “Acsef believes the city needs a centre that will reflect that aspiration and attract future talent and businesses. This is about jobs for today’s secondary pupils and undergraduates – our children and grandchildren.” You could call this the Nora Batty argument: The Grand old lady of Aberdeen needs a brand new mini-skirt to exert her charms on potential suitors.

The consultation went ahead and it looked as if Acsef could not lose. Even the header for the poll questionnaire gave you a prompt if you didn’t know how to vote “Have Your Say: We believe Aberdeen needs a large, vibrant, cultural and civic space and gardens in the heart of the city for today and for future generations.”

The results of the consultation were reported on the 13th April 2010; a majority of 1,270 said no to the city square project. Oops.

Local businessmen were not happy with the result of the consultation and wrote a letter to the Council urging them to go ahead

An analysis of the vote was published by Acsef. “The consultation results show that the public were nearly evenly divided over the City Square Project as proposed, although overall more were against the project than for it.” Don’t you just crack up at that “nearly evenly-divided” bit when a majority of 1,270 said no.

http://cdn.activecommerce.net/content/csp/CSP_Consultation_Report_FINAL.pdf

More of that wacky humour was to follow. Acsef provided a break-down of the comments made by people online during the consultation.

“I value having in the heart of the City this secluded amphitheatre with its mature trees and think it would be an act of vandalism to sweep it away.” Recorded as voting yes to the city square.

“We don’t want Aberdeen to turn into a concrete jungle” Recorded as voting yes to the city square.

“The prospect of a huge square in place of the gardens is a terrible prospect and I have yet to understand the contention that this is necessary for the future well economic welfare of the city…. do not support the project.” Recorded as voting yes to the city square.

There are over 200 responses like this in the report.

http://cdn.activecommerce.net/content/csp/Appendix2a-Feedback_Forms-Sorted_YesNo.pdf

Local businessmen were not happy with the result of the consultation and wrote a letter to the Council urging them to go ahead with the city square project and ignore the no vote, ‘due to misunderstanding of the project among the public’ and an ‘inability’ to appreciate its impact. Cheeky, cheeky!

http://news.scotsman.com/news/Reject-city-square-at-your.6275672.jp

Acsef now had the tricky matter of keeping the city square project going despite the public vote against it.

This was because as Ascef minutes record, “There is a mandate from the business community to proceed to the next stage”. There was also the unfortunate position of the Labour party who had come out against the plan. They had to be dealt with. The minutes of the Acsef meeting on the 13th April mention that:

“Following discussion amongst private sector members of the ACSEF Board after the Special meeting on 22 March a letter had been drafted to senior members of the Labour Party expressing disappointment at the Party’s stance in relation to the project. Private sector Board members approved this for issue.” http://www.acsef.co.uk/uploads/reports/21/13%20April%2010.doc

The Labour party were very upset at these comments, given that this was a publically funded organisation taking a political stance on a highly-controversial issue (both Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire councils fund Acsef with £230,000 a year each). Nevertheless, they were puzzled as to why no letter had ever arrived and further curious as to why Acsef had stated that it had received no reply from any of the Labour politicians it had been addressed to. It later transpired that due to a mix-up within Acsef, no letter had actually been posted. Labour MSP Richard Baker wrote in a scathing letter to the Press and Journal: “When Acsef is confused about how this letter was sent, and when it certainly has not been seen by its intended recipients, how on earth can they comment on a lack of a response? This typifies the shambolic way this organisation has handled this crucial issue for the future of Aberdeen.”

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1821147?UserKey=

The time had come for creative thinking if the project was not to be lost. The original report on the consultation had stated “11,943 people went on to submit formal responses that have been recorded in the statistics. This is a huge response rate when compared to similar style consultations. For example, the Edinburgh Tram consultation had just under 3,500 direct responses.” This was not good enough though. The board met on the 22nd of March and hatched a cunning plan “If views are roughly split there is an opportunity to say that although the public has spoken this is only in relatively small numbers.

Shangri-La would be rebuilt in the centre of Aberdeen and people would come for miles to see the giant concrete slab

Those wishing to see the status quo are in the minority compared to those who wish to see change such as updating and modernising the gardens.” Brilliant! As the great polemicists would say, it’s not the logic of your position that matters, it’s how you frame the argument that is all important. Or putting it another way:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master— that’s all.”

This perspective was the key to moving forward, especially in view of Sir Ian Wood’s position expressed at the same meeting:

“A negative outcome from the consultation would be accepted graciously as the voice of the people having spoken. If the outcome is split, one of the key conditions would be Aberdeen City Council support and resource to take the project forward to the next stage. “

http://www.acsef.co.uk/uploads/reports/21/22%20March%2010.doc

The Council decided to pre-empt the consultation and vote on the issue. This they duly did on May 19th, 2010 and they agreed to progress the city square project (or the city garden project as they now wanted it to be called).

Acsef clearly like a challenge and they had a whopper. The scheme was not only highly unpopular but given the grandiose scale of the city square (it would be just slightly smaller than Red Square in Moscow), the costs were likely to be vast, reasonably £200 Million or more. Sir Ian Wood had promised £50 Million towards the cost of the project.

Where was all the extra money coming from?

Aberdeen Council had the utterly bonkers idea that they would borrow up to £200 Million from central government funds largely to pay for the square and then wait for the money to be paid back by revenue from extra business rates. Shangri-La would be rebuilt in the centre of Aberdeen and people would come for miles to see the giant concrete slab (earlier this year Acsef had ran an advert in the Press and Journal describing the city square as “a unique opportunity to put the city on the must visit list”).

City-centre traders would be making so much extra money that the rateable value for their businesses would go through the roof. An extra twist to the saga came from the September Council Finance Committee. Consultants were to be asked “to make it clear that they are required to produce a business case that ensures zero financial risk to the Council.” So the Council borrows up to £200 Million with no risk at all. Hilarious! Aberdeen Council could potentially put the makers of Xmas cracker jokes out of business. In fact, ‘crackers’ just about sums it all up.

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1940121?UserKey=

Yet the Council would have everybody think that the city square is a done deal; it is anything but. It is at least 18 months away from planning submission, everything is running at least 4 – 6 months late and very little of the project plan has actually happened yet. There is much that could go wrong with the scheme before long and it probably will.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,

In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.

I wish you a Merry Xmas and I reckon that a happy new year for everyone will see the back of the city square folly. Join Friends of Union Terrace Gardens through our website and help send it out of the way: www.friendsofutg.org

The Proposed Triple Kirks Development

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

Dec 102010

By Mike Shepherd.

It may not be well known to the people of Aberdeen, but a major city-centre development is in the pre-application public consultation phase. This is the proposed office block development for the largely-derelict Triple Kirks site opposite the art gallery. The plan put forward by Stewart Milne Developments shows a 7 storey series of glass boxes set in a steel plinth and is partly granite cladded.

The plan also envisages two storeys of car parking with entry from the Denburn dual carriageway. The spire of the original Triple Kirks is to be kept and is shown sandwiched between two of the glass blocks.

The public consultation consisted of two sessions which were held on the 3rd and 4th of December. There is also a website, where comments can be made by the public as part of the consultation.

http://commercialdevelopments.stewartmilne.com/PageProducer.aspx?Page=3362

There has been very little in the local press about the development. The Evening Express showed a copy of the plans, but surprisingly given the importance of the site, no details were given in the Press and Journal.

Alex Mitchell has provided me with a brief history of the building, which I quote here. “The Triple Kirks were built in 1843 following the Great Disruption in the Church of Scotland on the disputed issue of patronage – the right of the landed gentry to select ministers over the heads of congregations. About half the ministers and congregations in Aberdeen walked out and joined the Free Church of Scotland. New ‘Free’ churches’ were built, often next door or across the road from those of the Church of Scotland, for example the churches of Queens Cross and Holburn West. There was considerable rivalry on such issues as the height of steeples. The majority of Free Church congregations had rejoined the Church of Scotland by 1929, but a rump remains – the ‘Wee Frees’.

The Triple Kirks – three separate churches built around a common spire – might be regarded as a kind of cathedral of the Free Church in Aberdeen, and was certainly about the size of a (small) cathedral. Designed by Archibald Simpson, it shows some similarity to the Elisabethkirche in Marburg, brick-built churches being common in northern Europe.

Cost was a major consideration; and the bricks used are believed to have been recycled from the former Dee Village in Ferryhill on the site later occupied by the coal-fuelled electricity works, later the Hydro Board. Consequently these bricks were probably a couple of hundred years old even in 1843! The Triple Kirks tower and spire is of granite sheathed in brick.

John Betjeman wrote approvingly of the Triple Kirks, noting that the spire glows red in the setting sun. It is visible from a great many places in central Aberdeen and is a key component of the parade of turrets, towers & spires along Belmont Street and eastward, presenting the aspect of a medieval German or Mitteleuropan cathedral city.”

The churches had fallen into disuse by the mid 1980’s, and about that time the site was bought by Barratt the builders. Plans for an office block on the site were submitted to Aberdeen Council. I visited the Planning Department at the time to inspect them and was unimpressed. They showed a simple steel and glass office block typical of the time, a bit like a smaller version of St Nicholas House albeit with mirror glass. I was one of the few to object to the plans and the objections were upheld by the planning committee.

Barratts made a successful appeal on the decision to Sir George Younger, the Secretary of State for Scotland in Maggie Thatcher’s government. Sir George, did however, decree that the spire had to be kept. No time was wasted in demolishing the churches on the site (one or part of one remains as the Triple Kirks pub). However, no office block was ever built and the site has remained derelict for 25 years.

There is no doubt that something needs to be done with a part of the city that many see as a major eyesore. Nevertheless, not everybody is happy with the current proposal. It doesn’t look right; the scale of the office blocks is too large compared with the steeple and the building has a bloated rather bizarre appearance as a result. The blocks are too high compared to the skyline of the surrounding buildings. A five storey building would be more in keeping here. Additionally, the style of the building is unimaginative.

The nearby buildings, as Alex points out, have turrets and spires creating a gothic motif. It wouldn’t have taken too much flair to have designed a building with some concession to the prevailing style, but sadly this hasn’t happened. It is to be hoped that the planning committee will ask for some changes to be made to these plans to produce a building more sympathetic to its surroundings but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope of this.

Closures, Cleansing, Cars, Costs and Cuts

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Nov 122010

Members of Friends of UTG were shocked this week when they attended what they thought was a fairly low-profile council meeting to discuss ‘land use’ in the city.

Mike Shepherd told the Voice;

‘A friendly councillor told us about the Land Use forum being held in Aberdeen town house on Tuesday night. We went along with the vague idea that there might be some discussions relevant to the Union Terrace Gardens campaign. To our surprise it was a meeting to discuss council cuts over the next five years.

Present were various members of the council executive representing enterprise, planning and infrastructure (but not social services).

Options for budget cuts have already been published elsewhere. Nevertheless, it was still a shock to hear about them from council officials themselves in what proved to be a very gloomy meeting.

The intention is to cut the council budget by 10% over years 1 and 2, and then by another 10% over the period years 3 to 5, totalling £127 Million. Here are some of the things that were said at the meeting.

– There is no legal obligation for the council to fund parks, open spaces, street lighting or public toilets.

– There is an option to close all 9 public toilets in Aberdeen. One possibility being considered is to pay commercial properties to allow the public to use their toilets.

– The level of street cleaning may be reduced.

– An option is that once a council cemetery becomes full, not to maintain them and turn them into a wild life area.

– Reduce school crossing patrols, perhaps using them in the morning only and not at dinner time or the afternoon.

– Reduce expenditure on bus shelters.

– Car parking charges to increase every second year.

The council are looking for consultation on the cuts. In an angry exchange, it was mentioned that it was difficult to take the council seriously on this after the City Square debacle. The council executive assured everybody that they were serious about listening to the public.

Some suggestions were made in the discussion that followed. The council fund ACSEF by £230,000 a year, a figure confirmed at the meeting, and they could easily afford to fund themselves. It appears that there is a three-way agreement between Aberdeen council, Aberdeenshire council and Scottish Enterprise to fund ACSEF and the next review of this agreement is over a year away. Nevertheless, cutting funding to ACSEF is an option that has been considered.

Another idea was to put a moratorium on further council borrowing, particularly as a large part of the revenue budget services the debt. We were told that this wasn’t a practical idea as certain departments required unavoidable investment.

One ACSEF supporter at the meeting replied to this that the city needed better infrastructure like approach roads, only to get the caustic reply that what was the point of better access to a city where there were no parks, no public toilets and the cemeteries were wild life areas.

Although no decisions have been made re. cuts, there is no doubt that the standard of public service in Aberdeen is going to decrease substantially over the next five years. Given the irony of an almost bankrupt council in a rich oil town, JK Galbraiths dictum of private affluence and public squalor side by side will become painfully obvious before long. ‘

Giving Away The Gardens

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

Oct 082010

The future of Union Terrace Gardens came under intense scrutiny again on Wednesday 6th when a full meeting of the council was asked to vote on a new timetable for they key steps in the project. Although the proposed agenda was described as ‘only indicative’, its adoption would mean that the council were giving the go-ahead to this extremely complex initiative.

The group Friends of Union Terrace Gardens, who are campaigning for a more considered approach towards any development of the site, were allowed to make a submission to the council before the matter was put up for debate. Chairman of the group, Mike Shepherd reports;

I was allowed to give a deputation, which involved giving a ten minute talk to the council. I noted that the City Garden project has already suffered some significant delays. For instance, the item to consult the public on short-listed designs for the square has been delayed by four and a half months and will now start on the 24th August 2011.

One of the results of this is that several key decisions have been placed into the council meeting next April. These include approval of the final funding business case; a statement on the ownership of the gardens; approval of the SPV’s project business plan, approval to lease council land to the SPV and permission for the SPV to take the project forward. I urged that there is a need for caution on what is a complex financial and legal issue. I argued that to make several key decisions in one day’s council business is far too fast for the council to properly assess the situation and makes it likely that some big mistakes will be made.

The term SPV mentioned above is an acronym for Special Purpose Vehicle. An SPV is a legal entity which is a limited company or a partnership created for a specific purpose separate from the sponsoring organisation (in this case the council). The SPV could be similar to the Aberdeen City Development Company, an organisation currently being formed by the council to act as a joint venture between private enterprise and the council for the purpose of semi-privatising council assets deemed to be ‘market failures’.

A comment was made that having ignored the initial consultation where the public said no to the scheme, we would now be forced to pick the least-worst design

It has been proposed to set up the City Development Company with 12 board members of which only up to four will be from the council. The remaining board members are likely to come from private enterprise and possibly from Scottish Enterprise, a national government organisation.

The SPV would be charged with taking the city square through to completion.

This organisation is not supposed to exist until January 2012, when the council have noted a budget of £900,000 for staffing costs. However, we read in the calendar that the council are now being asked to approve granting the lease for the gardens to the SPV on April 27th 2011, at least a year before a planning submission is likely to be made. We have been told by the Council Executive that the lease would probably be assigned for 125 years. Although the council would nominally own the park, control would pass over to the SPV.

I said the following to the council during my deputation:

“If the lease is assigned early, then what happens if planning permission is not given? Does this mean that the council will have given up control of the park to a third party with no clear idea as to what happens next? How will the council get the lease back; can it get the lease back? What will be the status of UTG as a council-operated park if the lease is assigned 3 years before any construction is anticipated? Will the public be allowed to use the park after April next year?”

I didn’t get any answers to these questions. Surprisingly, the issue of a lease barely come up in the council debate that followed. However, one further controversy arose. Councillor John Stewart, the council leader and supporter of the City Garden Project, was asked if the option to keep the gardens substantially as they are would be one of those given to the public when they were being allowed to comment on the designs for the city square. No was the answer. A comment was made that having ignored the initial consultation where the public said no to the scheme, we would now be forced to pick the least-worst design.

Councillor John Stewart wrapped up the meeting by supporting what he described as an exciting, new vision for the city centre. He urged the council to approve the calendar going forward as a way to explore a possible future for Aberdeen and to fully assess the risks for the project. The vote went in his favour 21 to 13.

The fate of Union Terrace Gardens will come up again at the full council meeting on the 27th April 2011, a date when control of the gardens could be given away early. By this time, it is likely that that city-centre park will be a major issue in the Scottish parliamentary elections which are to take place eight days later on Thursday 5th May 2011. I have a feeling that the controversy over Union Terrace Gardens will have reached boiling point by then.

Friends Of Union Terrace Gardens Hold First AGM

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

Sep 242010

By Sara-Jane Duffus.

On Saturday September 18th, Friends of Union Terrace Gardens held their first AGM to formalise the committee.

The meeting opened 15 minutes late – due to a larger than anticipated crowd – to a packed St Mark’s Hall. Continue reading »

Scottish Party Leaders Comment On UTG

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

Sep 242010

Thanks to Mike Shepherd. Introduction by Dave Guthrie.

Few local issues have caused as much controversy as the role of Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen’s city centre. Everyone has an opinion.

As far back as 1952 there were plans to extend the gardens by covering over the railway line and Denburn Road. Continue reading »

Paving Paradise

Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Sep 102010

By Mike Shepherd

The plan was to build a multi-storey car park in place of Union Terrace Gardens with a concrete civic square on the roof. The local papers carried a drawing of the proposed scheme with happy smiling people wandering aimlessly around a concrete wasteland dotted with a few pot plants.

This view could have come from the feasibility study for the current City Square project, but it did not. This is what had been proposed for the gardens circa 1984 by the commercial company National Car Parks Ltd (NCP). If my memory serves me correctly the council may also have been involved as a joint venture partner.

Back then I worked in an office in Dyce and on the bus to work I read an article on the scheme in the Press and Journal. My initial thoughts were that this was not a serious proposition, the council could not possibly allow a much loved city centre park to be replaced by a multi-storey car park. Soon after, I talked to two of my local councillors and asked them about the plans. To my astonishment not only did they take the proposal seriously, but one of them had a rant at me. As far as he was concerned the sooner Aberdeen was turned into a modern city the better.

This was an alarming situation as it looked as if Aberdeen was about to lose the gardens and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of powerlessness in the face of greater forces at work. What could I do?

The campaign went viral and the car park scheme became highly controversial throughout the city

I went on to discover in my conversations with family and friends that the scheme was extremely unpopular and I could not find anyone other than councillors who supported it. In fact I could not find anyone that could discuss the issue without losing his or her temper!

I then decided to act. I formed a small campaign group and organised a petition with 2000 signatures. This may not sound that much by comparison to the recent “I heart UTG” petition with over 10,000 names, but this was pre-internet and getting 2000 signatures was hard work back then. We also contacted our councillors and wrote letters to the local press.

Aberdeen is ideally set up for a campaign of this sort. It is a small well-connected city where almost everybody knows somebody that knows you. The campaign went viral and the car park scheme became highly controversial throughout the city. At this point one of the councillors on the leading group running the city decided to speak up and voice his concerns about the plans. His party were then faced with splitting into two factions over the issue or throwing their lot behind the renegade councillor in order to maintain political unity. Subsequently, permission was unanimously rejected by the planning committee and the scheme was dead.

I now find myself 26 years later helping with a new campaign against a very similar scheme to build over Union Terrace Gardens. The councillors are a different bunch now but with the ruling group still out of touch. They are too close to big business in the city and it appears that they do not listen to the people.

Many think that the City Square project is unlikely to happen as it is just too expensive and too risky for the council to get involved with. It could take another two years for the council to realise this or they might even buckle under the pressure sooner than they did in 1984. The Friends of Union Terrace Gardens intend to campaign with the utmost vigour until this happens.

One lesson from 1984 is clear; Union Terrace Gardens occupies a prime site of downtown real estate with big business forever eagerly eyeing it up. The citizens of Aberdeen need to keep eternal vigilance to ensure that this space is kept the way they want it to be; a beautiful Victorian park in harmony with the granite buildings that surround it. The fight has been won before and it will be won again.

If you want to help with the campaign, join the Friends of Union Terrace Gardens on our website.

Jim Mather Demo

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Aug 202010

By Mike Shepherd.

On Monday, the campaign group Friends of Union Terrace Gardens used the visit of the Scottish Minister for Enterprise, Jim Mather, as the basis for mounting a demonstration against the activities of Scottish Enterprise and ACSEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Forum).

Jim Mather technically oversees Scottish Enterprise, the organisation responsible for funding over £300,000 of public money for the consultation on the City Square Project last year. Continue reading »

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