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Old Susannah’s Dictionary No.19

Aberdeen City, Articles, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Jan 072011

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste ( but do bear with her …. I believe some lengthy, yet justified aeriation may preclude ).

Congratulations to Ms Valerie Watts, formerly of Chief Executive of Derry; she will become the third Aberdeen City Chief Executive in as many years. Readers who can remember back as far as 2008 will recall Douglas Paterson taking early retirement. This was coincidentally just before Audit Scotland came to call, and just after he said he would not leave his post over the little matter of being at the helm when the City sold off various properties for a fraction of their market value.

Nothing to do with him. The auditors were unable to conclude whether these sales – some £5 million less than conservative market value – were a great idea, incompetence, or possibly even shady. For instance, the City claimed to believe it was selling property to the NHS, but sold it to a private developer. If only there had been someone who was invovled with both the City Council and the NHS. Granted Kate Dean would have been one of the most senior people Old Susannah can think of involved with both these entities, but she would have been too busy to notice a deal worth a mere few millon.

Next in the Chief Executive office was Ms Bruce, who left us for Edinburgh, claiming she brought us to a £9 million budget surplus. It actually looks like we need to make about £90 million budget savings immediately, but all the best to her.

Ms Watts may have to get a part-time job to make ends meet; the post of Chief Exec of our fair city only pays £141, 834, with 5% based on how well they perform. Then again, she will want to take a 5% pay cut (that’s about £22K) to show solidarity with the City Council workers who have happily agreed to such a cut themselves. While it may be true that the UK Prime Minster and his cabinet ministers all earn less than our City Chief Exec, they won’t have nearly as much responsibility as Ms Watts, who will need to meet heads of state, tell the Queen what to say in her speech, and build shopping malls and community stadiums.

A person could make a few comparisons between Aberdeen and Derry. For a start the population figures are similar – Derry c. 237,000 and per an Aberdeen report “In the period up to 2031, the population of Aberdeen City is forecast to rise to a peak of 215,000. Both cities have airports as well as countryside areas. Derry had a budget surplus of just over £1 million in 2008, and, well Aberdeen was in the red by tens of millions for the same period. Derry however has a biodiversity policy which has seen it take important ecological steps, and financially speaking it reported an income from its services of £9,140,000 and rates earned it 38,717,000 circa 2008. Obviously Ms Watts has a lot to learn about local developers and what should be done with greenbelt land.

This is most impressive, but clearly can’t work in Aberdeen – we have builders to look after

If anyone can penetrate the Aberdeen City Council finances and find out more than Old Susannah can as to how we compare to Derry financially, I would love to hear from you.

Clearly they have skimped on hospitality, new office furniture, travel, and clothing to make its Lord Provost (actually mayor in Derry) look good. We managed to write off about £11 million in bad debts in a similar period, sold real estate to developers for a fraction of its actual value, and continued to have a discrepancy in pay women earned compared to their male counterparts.

Ms Watts won’t be used to such creativity. Rumour has it that Derry’s schoolchildren still have things like small classes and music lessons – but this is unconfirmed.

Looking again at the two cities and how they regard the environment, Derry has something called a ‘Local Biodiversity Plan’, which reads in part:

“Derry City Council is further meeting its corporate objectives by protecting and enhancing biodiversity in rural and urban areas, and thus providing a clean, diverse, accessible and sustainable environment for people to enjoy while also looking after the health and well being of its communities.

“Natural habitats are being compromised as development progresses in Northern Ireland and in the Northwest. Many species are now living in much smaller fragmented pockets of their previous habitat range. These islands of good habitat are more vulnerable to population decline. Developments of new housing schemes, industrial estates, commercial premises and office space in urban and rural areas, new transportation infrastructure, infilling… are all contributing to habitat loss and fragmentation in the area. Construction projects alongside or close to waterways are particularly sensitive and potentially damaging to flora and fauna”.

This is most impressive, but clearly can’t work in Aberdeen – we have builders to look after, don’t you know?

I can think of nothing that would succeed more than a luxury goods store on Vicky Road

Necessity: Necessity is defined as experiencing a lack of a desired or essential commodity. As anyone in genuine need can tell you, necessity is also a mother.

Aberdeen suffers from need; we identified the necessity of an £80 million pound re-fit for Marischal College for Council offices, and we met that need with new furniture – also necessary. Some things are luxuries, or can be described as ‘nice to have’.

In our City these include road surfaces, services for the disabled, help for the elderly, sports facilities, reasonably-sized classes for students, parks and music lessons.

And as our high-street stores close one by one, there is another thing we need….

Retail Rocks! Retail Rocks is a private company that will bring new life back to Torry’s boarded up shops as well as a few other closed business premises here and there. Clearly the closed down toy store and art materials shop near Bon Accord, ‘Globally Sweet’ on Union Street, and a dozen shops on Holburn closed as the owners were just too lazy or were bad managers. After all, Scottish Enterprise was always on hand to help, and at a cost to the taxpayer of £700 million a year – that is a lot of help. However, there is only so much that a small, unelected quango can accomplish, and Retail Rocks has stepped in to help enterprise in Scotland where Scottish Enterprise could not.

How hard in those conditions can it be to compete with international chain stores

It was not as if the rates in Aberdeen are astronomically high, or that there are not enough police to stop robberies (I can only think of two knife attacks in Torry stores in the last year or two, so that’s not so bad is it?) or to stop the occasional drunk breaking shop windows.

Theft is certainly not an issue – unless you count the dozens of stories in the press each month (and my favourite, the ‘hoodie’ who robbed the Torry PDSA charity shop last Christmas). Seeing as the citizens of Aberdeen have so much expendable income, I can think of nothing that would succeed more than a luxury goods store on Vicky Road. It’s only laziness that stops the family corner shop from completing the one or two bits of paperwork needed for tax, insurance, sales, licensing, transport and so on.

How hard in those conditions can it be to compete with international chain stores, one or two of which you may notice dotted around our town? Aside from their centralised administration, bulk buying power, brand recognition, control of suppliers and use of enterprising children in Asia to produce cheap goods, they really don’t have much of a competitive edge.

Soon the streets will be wholly regenerated with a dozen or so new shops for the ‘Retail is Rocky’ – I mean the ‘Retail Rocks’ competition winners. Get your groundbreaking idea in now. You could wind up a shopkeeper. With the recession in full bloom, there is only one way to go and that is up, and with VAT at 20%, it is easier to calculate it when it was 17.5%. Good luck to all of you – and remember to install security cameras and metal shutters.

Next week: more of the City Council’s committees, ‘conflict of interest’, and ethics

Old Susannah’s Dictionary No.18 – Winter Warmer Edition

Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Dec 312010

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste.

Aberdeen is such a cool city. Make that frozen. For those of you with snowshoes, ice skates or skis who have been able to make it out of your homes, you may have noticed a few minor problems. There may have been one or two late-running buses during rush hour.

A few flights and trains couldn’t run. Nearly two and a half thousand of us have had frozen pipes in our homes, including Old Susannah, who couldn’t find a plumber who wasn’t fully booked up.

Therefore a “thank you very much” to the brains at ‘Wayne’s Drains’ for giving such great help over the telephone; with their guidance I was able to avoid a burst pipe.

For a few days I had no running water which was a great adventure. I do apologise for turning in such a short ‘Dictionary Corner’ this week but I have three days’ worth of washing, cleaning and mopping up awaiting me. Sorry! It was messy and no fun at all clearing the pipes, and if I never see a U-bend or a tub of ‘Plumber’s Mait’ putty again it will be too soon. Still, I was much better off than an acquaintance who had a frozen toilet. He wound up in quite a mess. Speaking of messes…

Local Development Plan: The Local Development Plan, or ‘LDP’ to its friends, sets out the realistic, wonderful future for Aberdeen. There are goals such as doubling the City’s population, building thousands of new homes, and making a ‘community stadium’ on Loirston Loch (NB – Old Susannah cannot as yet find a definition of what a ‘community stadium’ is). Part of this ingenious plan is to always have land available to developers for creating industrial estates – again,

I always thought land was a finite commodity, and that we still had such a thing as ‘greenbelt land’. Apparently the ‘Planners’ don’t happen to agree. As a voter in Aberdeen, you were presumably made aware that your elected representatives would create this plan, only I can’t seem to find anything to back that up as yet.

You could also be forgiven for thinking that the local, elected Community Councils get asked what they’d like to see – or not see – in the plans from the earliest stages. Apparently there is a ‘statutory duty’ for Community Councils to be consulted for matters in their areas. The truth is that the developers (hmm – can we think of any influential local developers?) and the planning chiefs sit down and invent the whole thing without bothering the elected Community Councils – the rationale for this seems to be that the Community Councils get a chance to object later on.

Where would the needy ‘All Energy Aberdeen’ have been had we not spent over £9K on a wine, beer and juice reception

This is a bit like the farmer objecting to the gate after the horse has bolted. Therefore the ‘community stadium’ planners had a budget of our money capped at approximately £250,000 to spend to investigate the pros and cons of the deal. Had they asked the local councils first, they might well have been told to scrap the idea.

But remember, consultants have to make a living, too. It’s quite funny how the pros (like a big, shiny, new, red-glowing building where Aberdeen Football Club can astound 22,000 people with previously unsuspected footballing skills) are made to be realistic and important, and the cons – such as loss of wildlife habitat, urban sprawl, traffic and expense don’t seem nearly as important.

Of course, the community councils get to comment later in the ‘consultation’ process, during which their opinions are given the consideration that they are worth. For Loirston Loch’s destruction, they get a maximum input at the public hearing of 30 minutes per council. I hope they can talk fast. (Old Susannah will be getting up to have her say about the ‘community stadium’ at this public hearing, which is on 14 January at the Town House City Council offices on Broad Street at 09:30. If you’ve nothing better to do than see Old Susannah talking to a brick wall, do come along).

Hospitality: Dictionary definitions for the noun ‘hospitality’ describe it as meaning “… hospitable treatment, reception, or disposition .” Do not let anyone tell you there is any truth in the stereotype that the Scots are not generous and hospitable; Aberdeen City has definitely dispelled that myth. It might have done so using your tax money, but it’s money well spent. It shows the rest of the world how prosperous we are. Secondly, as previously established, our Lord Provost is worried about being embarrassed or looking foolish – which is why he and his wife need a generous clothing allowance and why he wants us to take Sir Ian Wood’s £50 million for the Union Terrace car park.

Let’s look at some of the hospitality we dished out last year. On the one hand, we only spent £129,472.5 pence according to the City. On the other hand, one wonders if it was all necessary. We threw events for councillors and a whole host of special interest groups. Where would the needy ‘All Energy Aberdeen’ have been had we not spent over £9K on a wine, beer and juice reception for it at the AECC? You and I gladly paid for the ‘Aberdeen Sports Person of the Year Awards’ at the Beach Ballroom where some 275 luminati had dinner and drinks for £9,774.25.

Lest we forget, the City just recently had to stump up an extra £64K or so for the international football programme’s going over budget. I can’t really complain, we attracted an amazing array of footballing talent, including Birmingham City. We still don’t have enough money to keep our schools or have children continue with music lessons. We might have to close our parks (or turn them into something profitable). I have no doubt that our elected officials who dutifully attend these drinkfests stick to water and soft drinks; they might wind up useless, sozzled and brain-addled otherwise; thankfully this hasn’t happened as yet.

However, let’s raise a glass to the forty plus drinks events we held last year. Cheers!

Old Susannah’s Dictionary No.17

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

Dec 192010

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste.

The new cuts are well and truly underway. Aberdeen City council met on Wednesday Dec15 and voted to get cracking on the ‘green lighted’ budget cuts, and the rest will follow as night follows day. Old Susannah is certain this round of cuts will bring as much economic stability and prosperity as the last round of budget cuts did.

Cuts are always hard, but are especially unwelcome at this festive time of year. Please then pause to spare a thought for the forgotten victims of these hard times who have been hit hard. I am of course referring to the City Council officials who this year will not be reimbursed for printing their own Christmas cards to send to friends and constituents. Yes, it’s true – you might not get a card this year showing your councillor, their family and the family pet by a fireplace in full technicolour glory, sincerely wishing you and your family the best for 2011. Quite rightly, some of the councillors have complained that this is a cut too far.

Nothing brought quite as much cheer as a Christmas card showing your happy councillor, except perhaps knowing that your tax money helped to pay for it. There is only so much a hardworking councillor can pay for out of their meagre salaries, so if anyone from Future Choices or the Cyrenians is reading this (or anyone else who feels this cut is unfair), please send your councillor a pound or two. Thank you.

By popular demand Old Susannah has been trying to follow up on various animal cruelty stories previously covered in these pages. Our friend the fox batterer, Donald Forbes, is due in the courts early in 2011; he went back on his original confession to clubbing the fox. He then said he was in mortal danger, and merely swung the club near the fox. Now he’s saying nothing. It remains a mystery how the fox was so badly injured it needed to be put down just from having a club swung near it. Maybe Forbes is not a very good golfer.

Coventry’s Mary Bale still can’t explain why she put a cat into a wheelie bin and left it there for some 15 hours

Seagull – shooting Mervyn New of Marine Subsea is making no comment either. Yours truly sent an email to his company and its head office in Norway (asking about its’ guns at work’ policy); both resulted in ‘delivery failure’ messages. I will call them again soon – no doubt they will want to explain why people run around their offices shooting animals.

It’s understood Mr New faces a charge under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. He could also face a charge alleging the reckless discharge of a firearm. It’s really a sad day when a man can’t shoot bird chicks from his office window; whatever are we coming to? Finally, Coventry’s Mary Bale still can’t explain why she put a cat into a wheelie bin and left it there for some 15 hours. We are meant to have some sympathy for her – her father was critically ill. Personally, I find that sending flowers or making soup for the ill person is usually more beneficial to them than the cat-in-the-bin method.

Committee: A committee is a group formed with common goals to promote a certain activity and/or result. It is also said that ‘A camel is a horse designed by a committee’. The reason Aberdeen runs as well as it does is its structure of committees. There are about 20 of these highly efficient committees, and countless sub-committees and action groups under them. Some of these groups of dedicated, far-seeing professionals include the ‘Audit and Risk’, ‘Development Management’, and ‘Corporate Policy’ and ‘Performance ‘ committees. There is an ‘Urgent Business’ committee as well.

We might be about 70 million pounds out of budget, but we do have time, money and resources for a ‘taxi consultation group’. Then again, with the money spent by Kate Dean alone on taxis, it’s probably a good idea this group exists. One of my sources confirms that we are still frequently sending taxis instead of using buses to transport school children and adult groups where buses would be far more economical. I am surprised – I thought most adult groups had been done away with.

Kate Dean is such a genius; her diverse talents enable her to successfully do a host of diverse jobs at one time

It is good that we have a Disability Advisory Group. The best advice I can think of for someone with special needs would be to move to somewhere that won’t slash its disability budget, or at least will clear the pavements in winter so you can leave your home. (PS – do bear in mind that ‘Future Choices’ replaced ‘Choices’ which the Council axed. They could, I’m sure, use a donation or two).

But clearly it is the Audit and Risk Management team that we all owe so much to. We could be in an awful mess if we didn’t have people looking after our budget. Risk managers must have been quite busy ensuring the City resolved its equal pay problems so successfully and swiftly. And when one arm of the city council took another branch to court recently over a housing/services dispute – spending yet more taxpayer money in the process, it was great to know that risk managers somewhere made sure the City didn’t waste money or look like a laughing stock.

Old Susannah will have a look at these wonderful committees in more depth soon.

Diversity, Diversification: Diversity refers to a condition of being composed of different elements. Leonardo daVinci was a genius with a wide ranging diversity of talents – sculptor, designer, painter, scientist. It is often said that we have not seen his like again, but in Aberdeen we have our own example. Our very own Kate Dean is such a genius; her diverse talents enable her to successfully do a host of diverse jobs at one time. She was leader of our Council before becoming head of Planning, and it is clear for all to see what talent she’s brought to those roles. But our Kate finds that her role as councillor and head of planning leave enough free time for various Board of Director roles.

The state of Grampian NHS can be attributed to Ms Dean’s presence on the Board. She was, of course, also on the Board of the successful AECC. Of course a few million pounds were needed to keep the AECC afloat, and the auditors prepared a damning report (which the Council had to discuss in secret this week). And the NHS locally may be in a bleak condition, fighting superbugs and parasites, but this could happen to anyone. It is clear that without Kate Dean having such diverse talents and skills, we would not be where we are today. Let’s give thanks where it is due.

In the old days, a worker or a company had to diversify to stay with the times. You don’t see to many coopers and blacksmiths in town these days. The camera and photographic supply giant Kodak saw the digitial age coming and immediately embraced it. They changed their business model from concentrating on making film-producing cameras and supplies to become an online giant for digital products.

However, we don’t want to have to make everyone diversify. Every week there are glaring headlines pertaining to the nuclear industry and the new home building trade screaming ‘JOB LOSSES COMING. Naturally we don’t ever want to stop making nuclear weapons – someone might lose a job. And as long as there are green fields we can build on, let’s not make the builders diversify into any other lines of work. This should be self evident.

The Triple Kirks

Aberdeen City, Articles, Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Dec 182010

By Bob Smith.

Gless an concrete aroon the spire
Raising hackles an causin ire
Thae designs fer The Triple Kirks
Aa drawn up by stupid birks

I can only think some philistine
Drim’t iss plans wid be fine
Nae thocht for fit wis roon aboot
A bonnie skyline gien the boot

Gless boxes seem a the rage
Architects nae langer sage
Foo muckle spent ti dream o iss
Some I think are takin the piss

Aneuch’s aneuch I hear fowk cry
Will plans be passed on the sly?
Stewartie Milne ye maan be jokin
At thae designs fowk are boakin

We are telt they’ll aa fit
Wi Widdies plans fit are shit
Ti build ower the bonnie UTG
Please fae idiots lit us be free

If ye think ma creeticism ower the score
Jist myn fit’s geen on afore
St Nicholas Hoose an Union Square
It’s time ti shout nae mair! nae mair!

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”2010

Darker Reflections – Emptying Out The Inner City

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

Dec 032010

By Alex Mitchell.

Causewayend School was one of the many handsome and impressive Victorian granite Board schools created in Aberdeen for the fast-expanding city population of the later 19th Century. In fact, Causewayend was more handsome and impressive than most such schools, being designed by William Smith in 1875 and with a later Baronial-style keep by William Kelly.

But the school has now closed because of the declining number of children resident in its catchment area of Mounthooly-Gallowgate-West North Street. Not for the first time, we are struck by the sheer folly of the systematic removal of population and community from this (and other once-thriving and central neighbourhoods) through demolition of older tenement housing and its replacement – if at all – by tower-block flats, soon found to be unsuited to the needs of families.

The thing is that Mounthooly-Gallowgate ought to be what estate agents would describe as ‘a sought-after urban-village locality’; central, historic, characterful, surrounded by vistas of steeples, towers and spires and within walking distance of M&S. But its almost entirely public-sector housing provision – and that largely in the form of tower-block flats – effectively excludes would-be owner-occupiers, the ‘mortgage paying classes’, as well as those with families to raise.

The consequence is that the area contains relatively few middle-class families, but disproportionate numbers of poor and/or elderly people. Those blocks which are hard-to-let will also typically feature high concentrations of benefits claimants, the unemployed, single guys just out of the services or prison, alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally ill.

A functioning community needs a more representative social mix than this; the better-off as well as the poor, high-achievers as well as under-achievers, people with scarce and marketable skills, professional expertise and entrepreneurial talent. The local schools, like the canaries in coal mines, give the early warnings that a community is in distress, being especially vulnerable to a downward spiral of local disadvantage, poor test and exam results, pupil withdrawal, declining enrolment and so on.

The current pre-occupation as regards housing provision is with the supply and availability of ‘affordable’, i.e., low-cost, housing. It may seem perverse to say so, but what Mounthooly-Gallowgate really needs is more high-cost housing, such as would attract the mortgage paying classes back to this locality. Housing costs in any neighbourhood tend to reflect the earning-power of local residents. In the U.S. context, you have to pay a high rent, or house price, to live in, say, Manhattan, because you are surrounded by high-earning people. (The characters in Friends couldn’t possibly afford to live there!) You would pay a lower rent or price to live in Brooklyn or Queens, because there you would be surrounded by lower-earning people.

Low-cost housing reflects the low earning power of local residents, their lack of marketable skills and expertise and/or entrepreneurial flair, possibly compounded by, or attributable to, low educational attainment, poor physical and mental health, drug and alcohol abuse and criminality. A failed or collapsed local economy, such that decently-paid jobs are simply unavailable, might also come into it; but that has not been the context here in Aberdeen for some decades past.

The World Bank investigated the underlying causes of the relative wealth or poverty of different countries in 2005. They concluded that: “Rich countries are rich largely because of the skills of their populations and the quality of the institutions supporting economic activity”.

Much of this is attributable to intangible factors – the extent of trust amongst and between people, an efficient judicial system, clear property rights and efficient government. On average, the ‘rule of law’ accounts for 57% of a country’s ‘intangible capital’, whilst education accounts for 36%. But whereas Switzerland scores 99.5% on a rule-of-law index, and the USA 91.8%, Nigeria’s score is a pitiful 5.8% and Burundi is worse still at 4.3%. Some countries are so badly run that their intangible capital is actually shrinking. The keys to prosperity are the rule of law and good schools; but through rampant corruption and failing schools, countries like Nigeria and Congo are destroying the little intangible capital they possess, and are thereby ensuring that their people will be even poorer in the future.

There are too many parts of Britain where no-one in their right mind would think of starting a (legitimate) business enterprise

What is true of countries in the global context is also true of regions, cities and towns within a country and even of neighbourhoods within a city or town. The rule of law, i.e., crime-prevention, and a functioning education system are basic pre-conditions for industry, investment and employment; not least because decision-takers are picky about where they live and the schools their children attend.

There are too many parts of Britain where no-one in their right mind would think of starting a (legitimate) business enterprise, and where almost no one does.

Even in the relatively prosperous context of Aberdeen, there are neighbourhoods where the trend is all-too observably one of business closures and withdrawal rather than start-ups and expansion, and for all-too obvious reasons; a collapse of law & order, rampant criminality, and a lack of relevant skills and, consequently, of spending-power amongst the local population and labour force. As the World Bank concludes, the solutions are (a) the rule of law, and (b) efficient education systems.

In the local context of Aberdeen neighbourhoods like Mounthooly-Gallowgate, the immediate or quick-fix solution is probably that of improving the social mix by making available a wider range of housing types – private-rented, owner-occupied, detached/semi-detached or at least maisonettes/terraced, rather than having only high-rise blocks of Council-owned flats. However, closing schools like Causewayend and nearby Kittybrewster seems like a seriously bad move.

king-st-the-north-church-by-john-smith-1829

The theme of the emptying inner city came to mind on a recent visit to Aberdeen Arts Centre, which has long occupied the former North Church, No. 33 King Street.

This splendid 1830 Greek-Revival building by John Smith was positioned so as to be visible and conspicuous from almost all angles, central to the whole area. Yet it is surrounded by streets, once vibrant with people, shops and businesses, which now contain little or no resident population; the south (town) end of King Street, Queen Street, East/West North Street and Broad Street.

It is as if the planners had set out to ethnically cleanse the whole area of humanity. That has certainly been the effect of past planning decisions, even if not the intention.Even on a sunny Saturday afternoon, there is not a soul to be seen in any direction. We are reminded of the bleak post-war Vienna depicted in the film The Third Man, its population dead or dispersed to the four winds.

Old Susannah’s Dictionary – No. 14

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

Nov 262010

Voice’s Old Susannah tackles more tricky terms with a locally topical taste.

Get Well Soon

To the 126 Aberdeenshire and 169 Aberdeen City Council employees who are either sick or suspended with pay. Perhaps there is some serious illness doing the rounds in Grampian?

The Telegraph has produced an interactive map showing Council expenditures and expenses throughout the UK; the number of our city and shire’s absentees on the payroll is many times higher than the number to be found anywhere else in Scotland. In fact, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reports Aberdeen City Council is 4th in the whole of the UK for number of staff on long-term sick – with the Shire’s council hot on its heels at No. 6. But when it comes to the average number of sick days lost per year per person, no other council in the country can hold a candle to Aberdeen: 15.5 days each year are lost on average for every one of the council’s employees. The Council makes me feel ill; looks like I’m not alone in that.

Journalism : The free press has been called the ‘Fourth Estate’, referring to its ideal function which is acting as an unofficial fourth branch of government, providing balance and information to ensure freedom of ideas, and thereby keeping a check on government and fostering democracy. A free, non-biased press should provide information for its readers to digest so they can reach their own conclusions.

No less a figure than outgoing Editor Derek Tucker of the Press & Journal recently addressed the ‘Society of Editors’; he complained that journalism courses are not producing the right calibrate of journalists. Tucker said “… very few [of the journalism graduates] possess the street cunning and inquisitiveness that is the hallmark of good journalists and it often appears that English is a second language.”

Old Susannah wonders what would make for a bad newspaper. Would it be headlines created from extremely bad, old-fashioned puns? Gigantic photos camouflaging the lack of journalistic content? Deliberately biased stories favouring the plans of the paper’s larger advertisers? Elevation of minor local news stories above more important world events? Misleading headlines and stories – perhaps (just as an example) painting opponents of City and Shire council plans (like the destruction of UTG) as being organised, ignorant trouble-makers? Deliberate lack of investigative journalism focus on powerful local figures and institutions? Printing stories a day or two after they appeared on the BBC website? Elevating mediocre stories of minor sporting events to gigantic epics to fill space? Lack of spelling and grammatical know-how?

Thankfully, we have had Mr Tucker to save us from such appalling stuff. It is also most unkind that Derek Tucker has been given an unflattering nickname in the ‘Cockney rhyming style’. Obviously he has studiously encouraged ‘street cunning and inquisitiveness’ at the P&J, by ensuring corruption in public and private sectors is uncovered, and by printing such a wide range of opinion and thought in the editorial section.

We wish “Miserable F…” – I mean Derek Tucker – a happy retirement.

There is nothing natural about the City’s attitude to the natural landscape

Landscapes : In my last column, I wrote about a green, leafy landscape painting of Union Terrace Gardens I’d seen. Aberdeen City Council, too, appreciates landscapes; in its ‘Planning and Sustainable Development’ web page it gives the nod to how very important landscapes are.

Believe it or not, landscapes are what we put buildings in. If that is not clear, they have put a picture of a tree in a wide expanse of green field on the web page to illustrate the point – although finding a sole tree in a huge field would be a hard task in this town.

While our City Planners admit on their web page that landscapes ‘..provide the settings of towns and cities and make an important contribution to environmental quality and a sense of place’, they certainly don’t want developers to think the landscape should have to stay as it is. There is nothing natural about the City’s attitude to the natural landscape – anyone (like Mr Milne) can develop almost anything as long as once they destroy the existing natural landscape and wildlife habitats, they make some new landscape in place of the old. As the planners put it,

“… when applying for planning permission for a new development, a landscape scheme for the external spaces around buildings will often need to accompany proposals”.

It is this policy which will allow Mr Milne to destroy Loirston Loch’s natural habitats and beauty – all he needs is a scheme to plant a shrub and have some kind of landscape at some future point. And fair enough – when we are in the community stadium listening to Status Quo or finding out who can do the broad jump further than the next guy, we won’t care what used to be there. The last remnants of wildlife which depend on Loirston as a stopping point to rest, feed and drink will just go to one of the many other lochs and green fields we’ve got, even if the closest is miles away – the extra exercise will probably do the animals good. For far too long the developers have had to jump through hoops to get permission for their schemes (permission which they were always going to get in the first place). Something had to be done to speed things up, and it has…

It is official then – no more boring old-fashioned people interested in the environment, old buildings, history, etc

Modernisation of Planning Process : Scotland, the Shire and the City have been too demanding in the past of the kindly souls who want to turn our fields into housing estates, community stadiums and shopping malls for our benefit. Thankfully, the process for planning is being modernised. To modernise means to update a scheme, law, or way of doing things to bring it in line with how it would have been done in the 1960s. No more ‘unnecessary’ consultations with Community Councils – as Cove and Nigg Community Councils can attest to. In fact, Aberdeen now boasts that

“…we only consult where necessary with the agencies – SNH, SEPA, Transport Scotland, Historic Scotland, …”

It is official then – no more boring old-fashioned people interested in the environment, old buildings, history, etc. will be engaged unless absolutely necessary. Build what you want. SEPA is clearly on board with this thinking already – it had a chance to make an evaluation on the planned ‘community’ stadium’ – and came up with three relatively minor objections relating to drainage and the like. Maybe they think the concrete and parking spaces will help protect the environment. Maybe SEPA is due for a re-naming and re-branding exercise – getting rid of the quaint references to ‘Environment’ and ‘Protection’ would be a good start.

Hoosin Sprawl

Articles, Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Nov 052010

By Bob Smith.

We’re biggin ower muckle hooses
In oor wee villages an toons
Nae for the local fowk ti bide
Bit fer incomer quines an loons

Ye see mair an mair developments
In Westhill they’ve fair gin mad
In placies like bonnie Cove Bay
It’s jist ivvery bit as bad

Fair saturated wi bricks an mortar
An cars aa aroon are fleein
It maks ye stop an wunner
At iss madness we are seein

We’re telt we need these hoosies
For fowk fa wint ti move up here
Nae word o aa the impact it’ll hae
We’ll be in sic an affa steer

We’re aa affected by iss disease
It’s name is hoosin sprawl malaise
It slowly creeps aa ower oor land
An we wait for it’s next phase

It canna be cured by a doctor
It can only be stopped by us
Fin ye hear o a hoosin application
Jist kick up a bliddy fuss

Faa Elected Yon ACSEF?

Articles, Creative Writing, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Oct 292010

By Bob Smith.

Faa elected yon ACSEF?
Iss question is afen asked
Faa elected yon ACSEF?
It’s time oor brains wis tasked

Ti be on the board o ACSEF
Ye maan be fairly weel aff
Ye’ll nae get roon their table
Jist bein’ an ordinary nyaff

Faa elected yon ACSEF?
They tell us aa fit’s fit
We’re nae allowed ti question
Their spik, their drivel, their shit

Faa elected yon ACSEF?
Tom Smith is the main slugger
Faa elected yon ACSEF?
The answer is–nae bugger

They o’ coorse elected themselves
Oor economy ti gie a hike
Seems ti me they’re haein a spree
Deein’ fit they bliddy weel like

Enough Is Enough

Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Oct 012010

By John Sangster.

Well, here we are into the autumn of 2010. The general election is becoming a distant memory and the Scottish elections are homing into view. No doubt we will soon be getting bombarded with the usual plethora of promises as the political parties vie for our vote. It will be “we’ll give you this” and “we’ll give you that” and if “they give you this and that, we’ll give you this, that and something else that we’ll think of nearer the election”.

I am waiting for the ultimate political promise where one party will guarantee reincarnation after death, this being a particularly good one as there’s no way of proving otherwise.

The party manifesto that they spout out during the campaign is the thing that nobody reads – mainly because the parties have the nerve to charge us for it. During the last election I asked the Labour and Tory candidates in Gordon for a manifesto and was told “I don’t carry them with me when I’m campaigning but, if you go into any party office in Aberdeen, they’ll sell you one”. The problem is that all these promises can never be kept as there are so many of them in one document that it would take decades to fulfil them all.

I seem to remember in the nineteen eighties that all Aberdeen’s political parties were promising to make Aberdeen the greatest city in the world, the pavements were paved with gold, the oil was overflowing and The Dons were winning everything. If you fast forward to the last Scottish election, the political parties were promising to clean up Aberdeen, to wash the pavements, to make contingency plans after the oil runs out and the Dons were winning absolutely nothing. What went wrong? Answers on a postcard please.

a bus station where, in the winter, passengers have to stand in the blizzard to see if the bus is coming

My own guess is that the standard of politician in this country has plummeted and our towns and cities are no longer run by people with principles who genuinely want to make a difference. As Tony Benn so eloquently put it “We are no longer being governed, we are being managed”.

Today’s politician doesn’t speak to the people anymore, they consult with spivs and speculators and money people whose only interest in the city is where their next buck is coming from.

Aberdeen has many examples from the eighties onwards : the shopping malls , (put there by apparently blind planners) the fact that Union Street was never pedestrianised, and the assorted plans to cover areas all over the city. One plan after another brought to us by useless politicians who now use taxpayers’ time to exchange juvenile insults with each other.

The major building crime of the century as far as city planning goes is Union Square and the new bus station. Whoever gave the go ahead for that should be taken to the city boundary, pointed south and told to never ever come back.

It is the monstrosity of all monstrosities – a bus station where, in the winter, passengers have to stand in the blizzard to see if the bus is coming. Did the politicians do anything about that? No. Will they do anything about saving UTG?, No. Will they clean up the city and restore places like Johnson Gardens? No. However, will they promise you everything at the next election? Yes, yes and yes again, they will be falling over each other (and you) to give you leaflets. Lots of shiny new leaflets run off at your expense.

This is the time to say “NO, we will not put up with this anymore”. I urge the independently minded citizens of Aberdeen to stand at the forthcoming elections and vote out the useless bunch of chancers that occupy the Town House just now.

Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est La Même Chose

Articles, Featured, Opinion No Responses »

Aug 062010

Aberdeen Voice reader Jeremy Millar sees history repeating itself in the city.

In a recent bout of clearing-out, I came across a letter I wrote to the local paper in 1986.

“Dear Sir,

It appears to me that the stream of letters expressing dismay at the inefficiency of Aberdeen district council’s new computer booking system is but an ongoing symptom of an ongoing identity crisis afflicting the council.

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