AWPR Coming: Don’t Lose Out If You Are In Its Way

 Aberdeen City, News  No Responses »
Apr 092013
 

Hundreds of  homeowners could be in for a nasty shock.  Transport Scotland has taken title on lands needed for the AWPR.  Like or loathe the idea of the new road, it is coming.  If you are affected by its progress, you cannot afford to sit by and do nothing.  Suzanne Kelly reports.

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As reported in the Press & Journal, a staggering number of land/property owners have failed to take action to ensure they get compensation.

Do you live in the path of the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR)?  Did you receive any correspondence from government or Transport Scotland?

If this applies to you, and you have not taken any action yet, you are urged to seek legal advice and/or contact the Citizens Advice Bureau.

According to the Press & Journal article of April 5, Larry Irwin of Strutt & Parker said:-

“… less than 50% [of land owners] have so far submitted their claims for advance compensation under the 90-day notice form.  Affected owners can claim 90% of the provisional value calculated by the district valuations office.  It is important to note that this does not prejudice any further claim negotiations.

“Now that Transport Scotland has title to the land in question, previous owners re at a disadvantage if they do not claim as they no longer own the land or have any rights over it.  They will not receive any compensation unless they submit their 90-day notice form.”

Those affected who are unsure what course of action to follow first might do well to get in touch with either a legal adviser or their local Citizens Advice Bureau .

A CAB spokesperson said:-

“Aberdeen Citizens Advice Bureau is funded to provide free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to the citizens of The City of Aberdeen and its environs. The city boundary at that point is from the River Dee in the South and Easter Ord in the North.

“We will not advise on class actions but individuals are welcome to come to our offices at 41 Union Street where they will be helped by a trained advisor.”

Advice can be found online at:    www.adviceguide.org.uk/scotland   .  Additionally, there are three CAB offices serving areas potentially affected by the compulsory purchases which are being used for land in the path of the AWPR.

  • Aberdeen Citizens Advice Bureau,
    41 Union Street, Aberdeen, AB11 5BN
    Advice Line 01224 210510
  • Kincardine & Mearns CAB, 9 Cameron Street, Stonehaven.
  • Westhill & District CAB, First Floor, Westhill Shopping Centre, Old Skene Rd, Westhill

Appointments should be booked in advance.

A CAB representative said:-

“…the CAB network is organised along Local Authority lines.  Every CAB is separate and is funded by its Local Authority, and so can only help people who live in that Council area. So, the Aberdeen CAB – which is based in the city centre – serves anyone who lives within the Aberdeen City area.

“But those who live just over the boundary in Aberdeenshire would have to go to one of the CABs that is funded by that Council (there are a few of these: one in Stonehaven, one in Westhill, and 2 others further north). Obviously, all CABs work together, and the service you get is the same wherever you go, but it’s important that people know to go to the right one.”

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Second Hames

 Aberdeenshire, Creative Writing  No Responses »
Apr 052013
 

By Bob Smith.

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-image-village-house-sale-image24557191

A problem in rural Scotia
The scourge o modern day
Fan fowk faa hiv the money
Buy second hooses faar tae stay
.
Noo some young eens in the kwintraside
Leave skweel an wint tae bide
An gyaang tae wark near tae hame
Be it Skite or Deveronside
.
Bonnie hooses in rural villages
Snappit up bi fowk fae toons
Tae spend a wikk eyn or holidays
Oot-buyin local quines an loons
.
Holiday hames they are ca’ed
Faar ainers dinna bide at aa
Bit rint them oot tae tourists
Is iss nae bliddy eese ava		 The young eens are the future
O the wee villages an toons
They’re haein tae leave the area
Cos o “second hame” bliddy goons
.
A hoose can be left empty
Fer wikks upon a time
Only bidden in noo an agin
Jist unused steen an lime
.
Holiday hames help oot tourism
Some fowk they div decree
Bit withoot a local population
The villages wull seen dee
.
.
.
.
© Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie” 2013

Ten Reasons To Vote Against The CGP

 Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Feb 242012
 

Peter Veritas makes the case for voting “Retain”.

1.  There is a very real danger that the City Garden Project will bankrupt Aberdeen.

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The City Garden Project (CGP) is planned for a greenfield site which would require substantial excavation. It is a five acre, five storey, underground construction that would span both a main road and a railway track

It’s roof would be required to hold approximately ninety thousand tons of topsoil, the same weight as the worlds largest aircraft carrier.  It is projected to cost £140M.

Union Square, which is of a similar size, was built on a flat brownfield site with good access. The final cost was £250m.

Marischal College is a much smaller existing building that was recently renovated.  No major construction was performed.  The final cost came to £65M.

Given that context, how can we be expected the believe the estimate for The City Garden Project is realistic? Should the City Garden Project experience a similar scale of overspend to the Scottish Parliament Building or the Edinburgh trams, then the shortfall could conceivably be of the order of £360M.  The city, which is already £560M in debt, would be liable for this overspend.

It could not be rolled up into the existing loan, and would require immediate payment.  Failure to cover the overspend would result in us being left with a dirty hole in our city centre.  The only options open to the council would be to auction off it’s remaining assets, such as the other parks, to property developers, and to increase council tax  massively.  Public services which have already suffered severe cuts would be totally decimated.

2.  Aberdeen has suffered badly from previous developments.

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St Nicholas House, the New Market, The Denburn dual carriageway, the Denburn Health Centre, The St Nicholas Centre, and Virginia Street are all universally acknowledged as failures that now blight our urban landscape.  Aberdeen lost many beautiful buildings to clear the way for those developments.

The people who campaigned against those architectural and planning atrocities are also campaigning against The City Garden Project.  They’ve been proven right time and time again. Perhaps it’s time we listened to them?

3.  We already voted against this Project under a different name.

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There is something sinister about the City Garden Project.  It was originally conceived as the City Square Project (CSP), and envisioned as a five acre flat concrete piazza.  That proposal only emerged after Peacock Visual Arts were given planning permission to embed an unobtrusive arts centre into the hillside of Union Terrace Gardens.  Sir Ian Wood pledged £50M to build The City Square, but promised to scrap the Project if the public rejected it.

That was then put out to a flawed public consultation, in which the public voted against by a substantial majority, despite the online survey mysteriously defaulting to a “yes” vote.  Sir Ian then reneged on his promise and continued to push the concept, the council ran roughshod over the electorate, and by the casting vote of the Lord Provost, consigned the Peacock plan to the dustbin.

Sir Ian has consistently stated that he will only contribute his £50M to this particular proposal and nothing else, and that if we reject his proposal then he will divert the money to Africa.  His behaviour is baffling.

4.  There has been an air of deception around The City Garden Project.

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The City Square Project was rebranded as The City Garden Project.  During the Project’s second coming the public were presented with six designs and invited to vote on them. None Of The Above was not a option.

Aesthetically, the public appeared to favour the Winter Garden design.  From a conceptual perspective The Monolith design was arguably the most cohesive.
The appointed panel then refused to release the outcome of this public vote and instead selected The Granite Web, a design for which very few people acknowledge having voted, and which many people considered to have been among the weakest.

CGP propaganda has continually claimed that Union Terrace Gardens are a dangerous place, but Grampian Police crime figures reveal that they are actually among the safest places in the city centre. Neighbouring Belmont Street, which the plans propose to connect to the Granite Web, is statistically the worst area for street crime.

Under the rules of the referendum, registered campaign groups are limited to £8k spending to maintain a level playing field.  However a mysterious group of anonymous business people has allegedly ploughed £50K into sending pro-CGP propaganda to every home in Aberdeen City.  This is not within the spirit of the referendum and is arguably a breach of the rules.

It has been claimed numerous times that the 250 year old elm trees in Union Terrace Gardens are diseased, but a recent report by a tree surgeon has given them a completely clean bill of heath.  These elms are among the last surviving in Europe, and they flourish both due to their isolation from other elms, and because the pollution of the city prevents Dutch Elm disease from spreading to them.  These trees are all covered by a preservation order.

5.  Those arguing in favour of the City Garden Project are mostly connected to it in some way.

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Scotland’s top public relations firm were engaged to promote the Project, which may be why the majority of stories that have appeared in the local press have been fawningly in favour of the CGP.

Those who have argued the merits of the Project, both in the press and on-line, are interconnected people with an as-yet unknown agenda.

In addition to the numerous PR professionals being paid thousands of pounds each day to present the case, there are several property developers, the owners of assorted the premises on Union Street, and various oil company executives.

No fewer than three city councillors, who backed the Project, recently announced that they intend to stand down, and have also revealed that they are planning to leave the city.  Virtually all of those involved are members of Acsef, Scottish Enterprise, the Institute of Directors, and The Chamber of Commerce.  The same dozen people feature time and time again in the groups which have come out publicly in favour of the Project.  The same people wearing different hats.

6.  The economics have no basis in fact.

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Tax Incremental Funding (TIF) is intended to fund the redevelopment of brownfield sites.  Businesses which later setup in and around those sites pay increased business rates which repay the cost of the development in a similar manner to a mortgage.  The business case for this Project bends the rules since the increased rates will not be gathered for the site itself, but from two new industrial estates, located several miles away and for which planning permission has already been granted.

The 6,500 jobs and £122M of projected annual revenue are a product of these new industrial estates working at full capacity. This is almost  guaranteed to occur anyway without The Granite Web.

Furthermore, the paid author of the reports is PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), which has recently been fined £1.4m for audit failure.  PWC rates the TIF case at Risk Level 3, where 4 is the highest risk.

7.  To save the architecture of the Denburn Valley

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None of the Granite Web mockups, artists impressions, or video, have addressed the issue of the rear elevation of Belmont Street.

This is home to some of Aberdeen’s most spectacular architecture, descending right down to the level of Denburn Road.  Architecture which will be obliterated when the CGP connects to it, some five storeys further up.

Most of these buildings are either local businesses or publicly owned concerns, and several of them have picturesque balconies below the finished level of The Granite Web.

8.  To retain our sheltered park.

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Union Terrace Gardens lie in the Denburn Valley which offers shelter from the wind and urban pollution.  Raising the area up to street level would turn it into a wind trap.

The wind would howl round the concrete walkways and other architectural features of the granite web, plants would struggle to survive, and people would avoid the area, preferring instead to travel along the relatively sheltered confines of nearby streets. It’s a fallacy to claim that this development would enhance connectivity.

9.  Union Terrace Gardens have been cynically starved of funding – in order to ‘pave the way’ for this redevelopment.

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Union Terrace Gardens was the centre piece of Aberdeen’s famous successes in the Britain in Bloom contest.  Over the course of the past eight years the council has cut funding, with the result that the Gardens are no longer maintained at previous award-winning levels

The beautiful Grade A listed public toilets were closed, the famous giant draught boards were ripped out, the winter skating rink was no longer installed and concerts and other public events were discontinued

A modest investment would both regenerate the Gardens, and improve access to them.  There is no need to risk bankrupting the city for what amounts to no additional benefit

10.  The curse of Corbie Haugh.

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Back in the seventeenth century, the area where the Gardens now stand was a wood called Corbie Haugh. The ancient Scots word for crow is corbie and the wood was named after the crows which gathered in the grassy valley and within the bank of elm trees. The elm trees in the Gardens date back over 250 years to that eighteenth century wood.

An ancient legend, The Curse of Corbie Haugh, holds that when the crows depart, the city will be ruined. If the elms are chopped down, the crows will indeed depart, and if they city ends up burdened by an additional £360m of debt, then it shall indeed be ruined!

SAVE OUR CITY FROM DISASTER BY VOTING TO RETAIN UNION TERRACE GARDENS.

 

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The Granite Web: What Would Howard Roark Think?

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Feb 222012
 

Almost every time Karin Flavill looks at the design for the Granite Web, the same question comes to mind. “What would Howard Roark think?” Intrigued? Read on.

utgbelmontpic

Howard Roark is the hero of The Fountainhead, a novel by Ayn Rand.

Rand is a controversial writer; aspects of her objectivist philosophy were transported across the Atlantic decades ago and transformed into what we call Thatcherism, so it’s safe to say that she draws strong opinion, from those who have heard of her, both here and in the US.

The attraction of The Fountainhead for me was that it gave me a glimpse into the unknown, that a philosophy designed to help the wealthiest members of society feel not simply financially superior to those who struggle, helps them feel morally superior to them too.

What is it that tyrants see that allows them to derive a sense of well-being when they look in the mirror? Reading Rand can help you find out, even if it’s unlikely that in reality, many of society’s bullies and elitists have the personal qualities and ethics Rand depicts in her heroes.

Roark may be a more interesting and relevant reference point than some other fictional characters who have entered the Granite Web versus Union Terrace Gardens debate. Jake the Ghost and Morris the Monkey for example, as promoted by the BIG Partnership, seem to have a peculiar and hopefully incorrect impression of what moves Aberdonians to vote.

Roark is his own man, and is Rand’s idea of the Perfect Man. A gifted and original architect, loathed by the majority for his innovation and commitment to the future, he despises architecture which draws irrelevantly from the past. His designs are modernistic and often hard for people to understand. The few who do understand become his friends, and are held up to the reader as exemplary beings.

In some ways, Howard Roark would seem to be another ideal spokesperson for the City Garden Project. On the other hand, this objectivist hero’s deepest contempt would be reserved not for those who disliked his designs, but for that partnership between business and government which is so conducive in the long run to crony capitalism. Hello, ACSEF.

  The pro-Union Terrace Gardens lobby regards the existing Gardens as a unique prize which could be something magical

Leaving the politics aside for a moment, would Roark look at the design and love it? I don’t know. I’m not an expert on architecture, but I do know a little more about people, and about conflict, and about the factors causing people beginning to feel alienated in their own city. Such doubts seem to be at the heart of this debate.

The pro-Granite Web lobby feels that Aberdeen requires a drastic makeover for it to become a place they would want to continue living in and that others would want to move to. The pro-Union Terrace Gardens lobby regards the existing Gardens as a unique prize which could be something magical if only people who understood it were listened to. The original Peacock Visual Arts design symbolises what could have been.

Throughout The Fountainhead, examples and analyses of the character’s genius as an architect are provided. One passage is, for me, particularly telling. Self-made man Mr Mundy has heard that Roark is a great architect, and would like Roark to design a house for him. Roark meets with him to ascertain what kind of man he is and subsequently what kind of house he would be happiest in.

“There was a place,” said Mr Mundy, “Down there near my home town. The mansion of the whole county. The Randolph place. An old plantation house, as they don’t build them any more. I used to deliver things there sometimes, at the back door.”

He goes on to describe the ways in which he would like to recreate that dream house, the house of his aspirations. From what we already know of Roark, he would dislike the notion of recreating something from the past. However, that’s not at the root of his disapproval of Mr Mundy’s aspirations. This is:

“It’s a monument you want to build, but not to yourself. Not to your life or your own achievement. To other people. To their supremacy over you. You’re not challenging that supremacy, you’re immortalizing it….Will you be happy if you seal yourself forever in that borrowed shape?…You don’t want the Randolph place. You want what it stood for.”

In other words, it’s not simply technical skill, the vision of the artist and the ability to give the client what he wants that makes Roark a great architect. He sees who people are, not as they want to be seen, or as they try to be seen, but as they are. It’s this ability to look past the hype, the pretence, self-advertising and PR that enables Roark to build houses in which people can feel truly at home.

Think of your own dream house. Would it be one that somebody else had designed? A talented design team who would create something that was a compromise between their personal tastes and your picture of who you would like to be? Who furnished it in accordance with those same principles? Would it be your home, or would it be a design piece reflecting aspirations of who you wish you were, rather than who you really are?

  Who are we, in Aberdeen? A conflict like this forces us to consider that question in some depth

The promotional video for the Granite Web presents a futuristic world peopled with white, transparent figures ambling aimlessly through flower beds, staring uncomprehendingly at car parts dangling from a roof, drinking coffee. Observe, consume, observe and consume.

These transparent figures aren’t creators or innovators. They simply absorb, passively, that which has been transported from elsewhere to make the city seem more impressive to outsiders. A place that might, at some future date, be awarded City of Culture status!

The promotional literature keeps insisting that this will be the people’s park. It encourages readers to imagine themselves consuming all that the park has to offer, in the belief that this will result in them achieving a sense of ownership over it. There will, we’re promised, be spontaneous performances, but it’s not clear who will provide these. Perhaps musicians drafted in from outside.

Who are we, in Aberdeen? A conflict like this forces us to consider that question in some depth. My impression, living here, has always been that Aberdonians tend towards reserve, despite night-time scenes on Union Street when alcohol loosens inhibitions. The notion that we can buy a totally different character for Aberdeen, via an expensive raised park, seems dubious at best.

Union Terrace Gardens exemplifies the typically reserved nature of the Aberdonian. Like a Christmas tree that contains only a few, semi-concealed fairy lights, it is capable of emitting the magical quality that a garishly decorated tree cannot. The magic of mystery and discovery, and something very different from the usual variation on the iconic city centre park that is springing up all over the world.

One person’s iconic, radical, inspirational park is another person’s pretentious vision of future dystopia. I’ll admit I belong to the latter category, which is why I’ve already voted to retain, and improve, Union Terrace Gardens. Peacock Visual Arts was a local initiative which would have provided a place where people interested not just in consuming the arts but in contributing actively to them could have congregated. That was an exciting notion.

The Granite Web, on the other hand, constitutes yet another ‘space’ in which the people who live here may perform a passive consumer role.
Sir Ian Wood believes that he is giving Aberdeen a gift, and has expressed hurt that many in the city fail to appreciate this. The difficulty is that altruism doesn’t always create a sense of self respect in the recipient.

The price paid for that altruism is that the opportunity to create and innovate is taken away from people in the community, limiting their opportunity to participate to that of being passive consumers. For some, regardless of the risk of being branded ingrates, that may be too high a price for them to enter voluntarily into this particular contract.

Old Susannah No.68 – Untangling The Web

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Creative Writing, Environment, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Feb 172012
 

Old Susannah looks at the Granite Web, and the impressive effort it has taken to spin.

By Suzanne Kelly.

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Tally Ho! Yet another vibrant and dynamic week in the Granite Web City.  Whilst Friends of Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen against Austerity, and Democracy Watch engaged in some inexpensive grassroots campaigning by flyer, the mysterious Vote for the CGP group pulled out all the stops and spent, spent, spent.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Northsound is playing City Garden Project commercials non-stop. The Art Gallery has a swish new display showing the Garden plan in its Alice-in-Wonderland perspective and garish colours, and issues of The Granite Web compete in the ugly stakes with the A3 VFTCGP colour flyer sent out before.

News reaches Old Susannah that visitors to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary are being cheered up no end by pro-City Garden Project posters on the walls. There is no escape at work either, as employees of Wood Group (no surprise really), Nautronix, and Taqa all seem to have received lovely e-mails from bosses hinting gently that they should vote for the CGP.

I do find it very touching that employers are looking after their employees so well and giving gentle guidance which puts no pressure on them at all.

Why do I call the VFTCGP members secret? Because I was told in so many words by the BIG Partnership, which does PR for this group and, coincidentally, the artwork for the CGP, that “if the members want to stay secret, it’s up to them.”

But before I return to my Myth-busting busting activities started last week – I only got through the first four of the ten Myths the CGP team say we’re suffering from – condolences to Rangers fans.

Was this one of the top Scottish clubs? Yes.

Will this leave a massive hole in Scottish football? Yes.

Will other sides face similar financial clubs? Looks like it.

I believe one tycoon is still paying some £60,000 of his own money each time his team plays. I do hope this mogul is not getting overly financially stretched. I’d again ask the question if Loirston Loch land – in a Special Area of Conservation – should really be turned into a 21,000 seat football ground with offices and museum in this climate.

  Donald’s granny was Scottish. This gives him good cause to call Alex Salmond ‘insane’

Well, I would ask, but the continuous concrete covering of anything green in Aberdeen seems unstoppable. Thankfully, we all have one tireless, gentle campaigner who is not giving up the fight for ‘Scotland’s heritage’. Step forward, Mr Donald Trump.

You might have seen one or two small news items saying that this gentle giant wants to build the galaxy’s greatest golf course on a no-doubt-underused stretch of coastline. He’s got rid of many of the view-blocking trees, but there are horrible plans to build windfarms offshore which could actually be seen by his guests, if you can believe that!

Now, windfarms don’t actually work very efficiently yet. The technology can, and should improve. But I guess we’re all agreed there are few things in life worse than being a rich golfer who might have to look at an offshore wind farm. For those people in favour of this kind of blot on the seascape, I would remind you that you’re forgetting something very important.

Donald’s granny was Scottish. This gives him good cause to call Alex Salmond ‘insane’ for supporting renewable energy. Please try to keep that in mind, thank you.

Finally, it might have been Valentine’s Day this week, but it looks like the May to December romance between Callum McCaig and Aileen ‘Ho’Malone is over. One of them is an over-blown, over-hyped, over-rated, naïve, headline-seeking soul, blissfully unaware that they are dangerously out of their depth. The other is Callum McCaig.

No more will they share a coalition; there will be no more romps on Tullos Hill; there will be no more late-night negotiations. Maybe yet the SNP will change its tune over the ridiculous cull of deer to plant trees that cannot possibly grow on Tullos Hill. Watch this space.

  the taxpayers’ side of this great granite garden bargain is to borrow £92m and pay the loan, and its interest, back over decades.

There is certainly a current in that direction, not least fuelled by public anger and the wasting of some £43,800 to date. Still, a break-up is hard to take. Final confirmation of this great bust-up comes in newspaper stories announcing that the coalition is still absolutely fine. I am thinking of offering my condolences to Mrs Robinson, sorry, I mean Aileen.

I’m still thinking on it. PS. Message to Irene – feel better soon!

And now back to debunking the debunking of the Myths. The City Garden Project seems to be the only entity that’s been presented with these Myths, and I commented on the first four last week. Here are a few choice words on the remaining five Myths. Thank you CGP for printing these not-at-all-wild and not-at-all-made-up Myths – we’re all really onside now. Their comments are in bold. Old Susannah’s are in regular type

5. It will cost the taxpayer millions of pounds – FALSE.

Sure. All this happens for free, and you’ve not paid a penny, and you won’t pay a penny. I wonder if the CGP forgot about the £422,000, or probably more, of taxpayers’ money Scottish Enterprise has already spent on this project? And, no doubt, our CGP friends don’t think it matters that some of your city councillors voted to set aside up to £300,000 of your money for legal costs.

Old Susannah is still mulling that one over. A billionaire is ‘giving’ Aberdeen £50m, but there isn’t enough money on his side of the fence to pay the legal costs the city will incur? So, rather than getting granny a new wheelchair, or providing 24/7 care at homes which have just announced cuts etc etc, Wood wants your £300,000. But this £722,000, nearly quarter of a million pounds, is small change.  we’re going to chop down existing, healthy trees, thus getting rid of wildlife that’s called the trees home for decades, if not centuries

Multiply that figure by ten and you get close to the amount of interest on the loan Aberdeen City Council has to sign for this project to go ahead, according to one of last night’s radio show speakers. Thanks to Original FM (on 105FM) for hosting last night’s debate. Anyway, the taxpayers’ side of this great granite garden bargain is to borrow £92m and pay the loan, and its interest, back over decades.

If the 6500 new jobs don’t come in and we don’t make £122m each year (I can’t wait to see how this happens), if we go over budget, if anything goes wrong – then it will cost us an unknown additional amount of money in repayments. The trams fiasco has reached a cost of nearly one billion pounds.

But this won’t cost you a cent. Honest, guv.

6. Fake, plastic trees – FALSE.

It’s a great Radiohead song but a lousy Myth. It has been suggested that fake plastic trees will be planted in the City Gardens to act as vents for the giant car park underneath. If any fake trees are seen they will be beside the flying pigs. 186 new trees will be planted, some of them mature and many will be Scots Pines.

Old Susannah doesn’t know where to start with this alleged Myth. She does find it reassuring to find that a job in public relations entails so much creative writing talent. I know of no-one who’s heard of plastic trees being part of the plan. However, if we’re building underground, then we’ll need plants with very tiny root systems. Goodbye 250-year old elm trees, one of only a few surviving clusters of elms free from disease, and home to wildlife. In comes progress. Who needs fresh air, wildlife, shade and beauty when you can have ramps?

   we’re going to chop down existing, healthy trees, thus getting rid of wildlife that’s called the trees home for decades, if not centuries

My favourite bit is the announcement that the trees stay in the Gardens forever, as wood chip and seating. Well, you can’t say that’s not sensitive to nature. Still, the BIG Partnership’s student placement has managed to make a meal of a non-existent plastic tree myth. Perhaps someone will explain how mature trees are going to be magically planted in the new Gardens?

Where will their roots go, as there is meant to be underground parking? How do we get to have a thriving pine forest in the city centre – something that doesn’t seem possible according to experts including local architects?

If Old Susannah has this right, we’re going to chop down existing, healthy trees, thus getting rid of wildlife that’s called the trees home for decades, if not centuries, plant some new trees, and have the world’s only pine forest in a city centre.

The pines must grow faster than genetically-modified Leylandii hedges if the drawings I’ve seen are correct, and of course, no-one can fault the accuracy of these precision drawings. I like the giant transparent child romping over the flowerbeds best. So, replacing grass and trees with grass, concrete and trees can be done for only £92m. RESULT!

7. It will cost people their jobs – FALSE.

As a result of the project a projected 6500 new jobs are to be created, not taking into account the hundreds of jobs that will come as a result of the construction. In addition, a transformed city centre will breathe new life across the city, helping us become a World Energy City long after oil and gas has run dry in the North Sea. Existing businesses will be retained meaning existing jobs will be safe-guarded.

These 6500 jobs are going to be wonderful! What will they be? Well, for openers we’ve seen how well Union Square has protected high street businesses. Our small high street shops are struggling whilst multinationals got a cheap rent deal in Union Square. But clearly what we need is….more shops. Surely there is nothing we’d rather do than shop, and you can’t have enough shops can you? It’s not as if a glut of shops will ever result in shop closures, price wars and endless sales, especially ‘Going out of business’ sales.

I wonder if there is any reason that a cafe culture has never really taken off in Aberdeen? Could it be that it’s often too cold, too windy or too rainy? Could it be because the City Council consistently refused to allow anyone to run a snack bar or coffee kiosk in the shelter of Union Terrace Gardens? Clearly not. One wave of the granite wand, and just like those convincing concept drawings, we’ll all be sitting outdoors in short-sleeved shirts, drinking decaf mocha lattes while Toto play on the brand new stage, in front of the existing indoor theatre.

Right. The taxpayer is propping up the AECC with extra money since it can’t make enough by holding events. Same for the Lemon Tree. But the new theatre won’t have any problems making a massive profit and creating loads of jobs.

 So, ‘how many theatres should a taxpayer prop up?’ is one question.

I for one can’t wait to sit through an outdoor electronic folk music competition in February. But, by winter, this theatre will be an ice rink, thereby competing with the ice rink the city tried to kill off before.

But no, there won’t be any harm to jobs. We’ll need people to cut down the trees and get rid of the wildlife. Then there will be jobs cleaning the graffiti off the Web. Yes, the Web will create more permanent jobs in small Aberdeen than the 2012 Olympics will create in Greater London. Rest as assured as I am on that point.

8. It will be entirely made from concrete – FALSE.

Obviously concrete will be used – would you like to relax, visit an exhibition or attend a concert on top of a cardboard box? The project has been carefully designed so there will be 95% more open, green space with a series of pathways providing access for people through, across and in and out of the gardens. These paths will be made of granite, crushed granite and wood.

By now, Old Susannah is finding the content of the dispelled Myths by BIG just a little bit patronising and smarmy. They thought they had to talk us out of believing in plastic trees. Now they explain that we need to sit on something more robust than a cardboard box. Thanks for that! Appreciated.

So, ‘how many theatres should a taxpayer prop up?’ is one question. ‘How many competing businesses should Scottish Enterprise suggest?’ is quite another. They used to have rules on displacement and suchlike, but these seem to have gone, probably about the same time as your employer started to tell you how to vote.

This project has been carefully designed. Of course it has. More green space, but somehow it manages to have a giant concrete, sorry, granite theatre which takes up some 15% minimum of the existing Gardens. They count the giant granite potato-crisp shaped thingy over the stage as green space.

 what if the architects were to give us some drawings showing how these ramps will work safely now rather than later?

Of course it won’t sustain any wildlife, and at best will be a thin wedge of sod over concrete, but if they want to call it green space, fine.

I guess these people call anything green space if they can colour it green with Crayolas on their paper plan.

Looking at the slope of the ramps both up and downwards, I’m wondering how the aged, infirm or wheelchair-bound are going to find this system easier than the current access. The current access could use an additional ramp and you could probably do this for less than £92m as well. For the truly baffled, there is ground level access on the north side, not far from the theatre. This is where vehicles somehow manage to get in.

Clearly there is no other way to ‘relax and visit an exhibition or attend a concert in this town.’ Let’s borrow £92 million and build this beauty.

9. There will be no railings in the Granite Web, people will fall from the paths – FALSE.

Safety will be paramount. The concept design shows the various walkways at different levels but the final design will show how these work safely. And, seriously, do you think any development in a country obsessed with health and safety would get off the ground without proper safety measures?

Our PR work placement is patronising us again. I might be old, but here’s a crazy idea – what if the architects were to give us some drawings showing how these ramps will work safely now rather than later? Are they going to be enclosed, and of course, not at all potential rat traps? Are they going to have fencing that somehow won’t look like Stalag 17? How will wheelchair users go up and down these steep ramps? Details, details.

Well, Old Susannah has run out of space for one week. We will return to normal definitions next week, and take a closer look at who is behind ‘Vote for the City Garden Project’. You will, of course, want to know what businesses are in this group, to make sure you can reward them with your custom. Or not.

Finally, many thanks to those brave business people who have stuck out their necks in favour of saving our city’s only unique, free, green garden.

That’s you, J Milne. It is appreciated.

Old Susannah No. 67 – Mythinformation

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Feb 102012
 

Old Susannah wades in with her chainsaw rattling in the direction of Union Terrace Gardens, but the elms need not fear, she is only out to cut through the misinformation presented as ‘myth busting’ by the City Garden Project.

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By Suzanne Kelly.

Old Susannah has been busy with Union Terrace Gardens this past week, like so many of us.  Another few short weeks, and the people will have voted one way or the other as to whether or not our environment, heritage and common good land are better served up with concrete ramps or not.

Then I can get back to the important work of singing the praises of our elected officials, unelected quangos and council officers, and local millionaires.

Before I get down to the Gardens situation, I thought I’d look back at all the wonderful artwork that the City’s children sent in for the Christmas time art competition and event in the gardens, organised and funded in large part by the Bothwell family.

Hundreds of children sent in their artwork, and at this chilly time of the year with Christmas past, they make a cheerful reminder of a great day, and what it’s like to be a child again.  And each and every one of the childrens’ artwork exceeds by miles the A3 takaway flyer sent by a group of anonymous business people telling you we must vote for the granite web.

Do have a look – you will be glad that you did.
http://oldsusannahsjournalchildrenschristmasartwork.yolasite.com/

On with some definitions then.

Propaganda:  (noun) Material, slogans, misinformation designed to advance a particular point of view often by discrediting or ignoring opposition.

My email inbox is bursting this week with details of employers who are sending their employees all of the leaflets, letters and testimonials which support the garden project.  Most of these are written in the names of associations or groups which have – but crucially do not declare in the literature in question – a member or members who are directly involved with promoting the scheme.  This is very clever indeed.

An employee wants to be told by their boss how they should think and want and vote.  It would therefore be most unfortunate if the employees were given some way to read the many arguments against going ahead with an undefined project with an undefined budget using an as-yet untested in the UK financial borrowing mechanism with a debt-ridden city council borrowing money.

Let us hope therefore that suitable precautions are taken to prevent employees reading the literature from different groups available at the following:-
http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/

Myth:  (noun) work of fiction, often including gods, goddesses and challenges and tasks.

Not since the rainbow bridge of Asgard joined heaven and earth, not since the legend of Hercules and his impossible labours has there been a tale as far-fetched as that of the granite web that launched 6,500 jobs and paved the streets annually with £122,000,000.  Sure, it may look more like one of the circles of Hades or the Minotaur’s maze, but the web is already passing into myth.

Those clever people who bring us this gift from the gods are worried we mortals can’t undertand the benefits, and are misunderstanding (or mythunderstanding) their benevolent intentions.  They’ve written a handy guide (something called a ‘blog’) The City Garden Project – The Myths, dispelled’ which can be found at:-
http://www.voteforcitygarden.co.uk/blog/17-the-city-garden-project-the-myths-dispelled

And to its words in bold italics, are my little responses.

The City Garden Project – The Myths, dispelled.

  • We want you to make your decision based on truth, not incorrect claims, speculation and downright nonsense!

Fine – we are all in agreement.

  • Myths have been at the heart of the campaign against the City Garden Project and if some of them were true then the opposition could be justified.

Which myths and what are they?  Where did you get them from?  I remember the initial consultation:  we were shown a beautiful, expensive colour brochure (which the taxpayer had funded) – the cover of which had a flat concrete giant square with some plants in planters.  Later on we were told the project was not going to look like the picture.  Maybe we could have saved some taxpayer money and time by waiting for a consultation and poll until such time we knew what the proponents had up their collective sleeve.  But it is not for us to question the gods.

  • But, whether by mischief-making or simply misinterpretation, the rumours have been rife.

So here we have an implication of mischief-making.  Was it the god Loki at work?  Or of the opposition being too thick to be able to ‘interpret’ what is proposed.  I have not personally heard ANY RUMOURS.  I have read serious questions about the project’s economic, ecological, sociological and regeneration benefits.

I have read people asking where the ventilation will be for underground car parking.  That is one example of the sort of criticisms and questions that I’ve experienced.  ‘Dante’s Inferno’ has a version of heaven, hell and earth without any ventilation, so I guess these miracles can happen here as well.  

  • So, let’s dispel some of these myths! 

Fantastic!  Let’s go!

1. The “green lung” of our city will be lost – FALSE. 

The City Garden will double the amount of green space in our city centre. The new “green lung” will be more usable, more accessible and brought into the sun-light. New garden areas will be created, including a colourful, blossoming area, a forest, a Learning Garden, a quiet tree-lined Bosque area with street furniture and open green space for relaxing in or having a picnic.

Patches of grass do not clean the pollutants and particulates out of a city – established, large, leafy trees do.  As the goal posts keep moving on what trees are to be lost by the City Garden Project engineers, it is hard to imagine which trees are going.

I am still very disappointed we will not have a MONOLITH at which we can make sacrifices to the gods.  I guess we’ll just have to sacrifice the trees, animals, birds, and money to these new gods instead.  But are you going to be reassured that the existing mature trees are somehow going to be replaced overnight by trees with equal pollution / C02 management capabilities by people – sorry gods – who think they can plunk a pine forest in the midst of a city centre?

Most people question where the trees’ roots will be – nearly all trees have extremely large, spreading root systems which require soil.  By the way these roots and soil are what prevents flooding.  I have read points made by experts who say it is not viable to grow a pine forest in the middle of a city centre for a number of reasons.  I don’t know the science – but I look forward to the City Garden Project team showing me examples of such cities.

  I do enjoy looking at the photos of people sitting on the concrete wedge over the ‘stage’ area which is covered with a bit of sod.

There are examples of cities with great open plazas which flood as there is insufficient soil / tree roots to absorb  heavy rains.  At least rain isn’t much of a problem here in North East Scotland.  As to bringing everything into the sunshine, err, the sun shines in the valley as it is – with the added advantage of the valley providing a very valuable wind break.

At Tullos Hill the soil matrix is very poor – which in the words of the soil report prepared by the Forestry Commission leaves any trees planted subject to ‘wind throw’.  If the roots don’t have a good firm earthy soil to hold onto, then a strong wind – like the kind that will inevitably blow across any area brought to street level – may well bring trees toppling on top of the granite web – or people.

Just by elevating a hunk of potato-chip shaped concrete and putting a few inches of sod over it, you are not creating a natural green lung/habitat/area,  even if it is the prettiest thing you’ve ever seen.  As far as doubling the space of the gardens, I do enjoy looking at the photos of people sitting on the concrete wedge over the ‘stage’ area which is covered with a bit of sod.

There is a woman sitting in a chair – a very neat trick indeed for such a steep slope.  Maybe she has a specially-constructed chair with short legs at the back and longer ones in the front?  Perhaps she is a goddess and is floating?  But as many observers point out, the ‘concept’ drawings are inconsistent in this and other ways, such as changing scale.

No, if you are losing the mature, healthy trees that are there – which are home to animals such as EU protected bats and rooks – you are indeed losing a major part of what makes the park valuable to our health.  There is no doubt of this in my mind, so I’m glad we have such a great team of pro-garden project personnel ready willing and able to explain all.  They’ve just not got round to it yet.

2. The city can’t afford the City Garden Project – FALSE.  ( Seriously? )

We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a £182m investment in our city at NO cost to the City Council or the citizens of Aberdeen.

One way or the other, the citizen is going to pay.  IF the scheme somehow goes perfectly to plan and we have a bunch of new shops (without hurting further the existing ones) the business rates will be used to repay a loan – a loan at an unknown rate of interest on an as-yet to be determined sum.

And if it doesn’t go well, and Aberdeen gets its very own Trams project fiasco to match Edinburgh’s – the City has to find a way to pay for the TIF.  As far as the donations from private sources are concerned, at last report Sir Ian had promised to put the £50 million he pledged into his will.  Well, if I were one of his children, I’d contest the will if it ever came to that:  an ageing parent throwing £50 million on concrete webs should convince any court that something is wrong upstairs, and a will might get thrown out.

  Some say taking a loan is borrowing money.  But seems we would just be ‘unlocking’ funds – so no problem there.

But who is our mystery £5 million pound donor?  If this is a public project (debatable – the Aberdeen City  Gardens Trust is a private limited company with two people in it), then the public should know where all of the money is coming from.  If someone pledges money, what guarantee is there it will come in?  Some of our current millionaires are feeling the economic pinch, sad but true.

And if are they using this £5 million promise as a lever to tip the balance of public opinion towards the scheme  – then if they stand to gain personally, then we should be told.

I hear varying reports that other private people are pledging something like £20 million.  Now that’s a myth I’d like more info on.

Once in a lifetime?  How on earth is that conclusion reached?  That claims sounds  very much like the scaremongering the pro garden project have been accusing others of.  There are six trial TIF schemes at present.  There may well be more.  But if this were a once in a lifetime chance, then all the more reason to take our time and make a cohesive, desirable bid, perhaps even one based on something less nebulous than a scheme that has a forest one week, an ice rink the next – and so other many unknowns to it.

TIF is only in the pilot stage in Scotland – so let’s get in there first!  Test case Aberdeen!  Some say taking a loan is borrowing money.  But seems we would just be ‘unlocking’ funds – so no problem there.

A minor detail, as we’ll all be rolling in dosh in no time, but do we know the interest rates on the £182 -192 million pounds Aberdeen City Council is going to borrow?  I’ve not been told.  Over to you, City Garden Project.

Again I will say that mere mortals choose to live in an area that is clean, safe and has excellent schools and hospitals.  I must have missed the part when someone proposed to the City Council that it should cut services and schools, and replace green space and our environmental heritage for concrete.

I don’t remember agreeing to continuously expand the City’s footprint into its green space while there are so many empty buildings in the city centre.  I guess I wasn’t paying attention that day – probably got distracted by reading about a cute baby competition in the news or something.

  • 40% of the cost of the City Garden has already been secured. The Scottish Government have pledged that, if the development is supported by the public, a TIF will be used to fund the rest of the costs for the City Garden Project. 

Fine.  Let’s see the legal papers showing exactly how much has been pledged and how ironclad or otherwise these pledges are.  Forty percent?  What is the figure?  We still do not have any genuine, concrete, specific project (no timescale, no costings done, and no precise scope – these are what you learn in ‘Projects 101’ are the building blocks).  You cannot  possibly say you have 40% of the money you need for something which you don’t even have defined or costed.  Not without godlike wisdom anyway.

  • TIF is a bit like a mortgage. The cost of the “property” is £182m. The “property” is the City Centre Regeneration Scheme (Aberdeen Art Gallery, St Nicholas and North Denburn redevelopments, the new public realm and the City Garden Project). The £55m of philanthropic donations already secured for the City Garden, along with the £15m to follow from the private sector, is the deposit.   

First, please define ‘the new public realm’ for me – just so that we are all talking about one specific defined term, thanks.  I’ll bet TIF is a bit like a mortgage:  if you don’t pay up, you lose your property.  Again Aberdeen City Council are going to borrow the money via TIF.  Not Ian Wood.  Nor the private limited ‘Aberdeen City Gardens Trust Company’.

Just as well we’re told it will bring in over a hundred million a year – we’ll be needing it.

Back to the mathematics.  OK – let’s assume the £55 million is £50m of Ian Wood’s, plus the mystery philanthropist.

We should also be told who the £15 million is coming from, but leaving that aside, that’s apparently £70 million pounds.

Some people would question what kind of tax breaks if any will be given to the donors, and whether or not the tax that does not get into the treasury (because it’s being put in a hole in the ground) would be of benefit to our ever-dwindling services instead.

Right – 70 million is forty percent of 175 million.  We have just been told that the ‘cost of the property is 182 million’.  Sorry – I would have thought that the 182 million is the value of the assets, but there it is.  Just for the record: forty percent of 182 million is 72.8 million.  And just so you know, Scottish Enterprise had by May of this year spent over £420,000 on this project on consultations and PR and the like, and the City Council have just agreed to spend up to £300,000 of our money on the legal costs.

Just as well we’re told it will bring in over a hundred million a year – we’ll be needing it.  Hands up anyone who suspects this project will have many little extras here and there.  Do you think at the end of the day the estimates we are getting now (nebulous as they are) will:  a.  stay exactly the same, b.  decrease and cost less than we think, or c.  cost more?

  • The City Council takes out a loan to pay for the remainder. This loan is paid back over 25 years using the income from the new business rates raised. The City is therefore being given both the deposit and the income to pay back the loan – clever eh? That’s why TIFs are so widely used in the States and promoted in Scotland by the Government. But remember a TIF can only be used for this – not for anything else and if we don’t use our TIF, other cities will!

Well, it is indeed time for some myth- busting, because depending on who you listen to, this either is or is not a commercial venture.  TIF is supposed to be for commercial ventures – and it is unclear how anything but a commercial venture can make the millions in loan repayments we would need to make.

In fact, I seem to recall seeing a video of one of the ‘philanthropists’  saying this is ‘Not a commercial venture’.  ‘Clever eh?’  – I am not exactly convinced.  I do think risky, untested, potentially fiscally disastrous.

And overall, unnecessary to my way of thinking.  Nothing is wrong with the gardens.  We could regenerate the city’s shops by lowering our extremely high business rates.  Making more shopping spaces, eating places and entertainment venues creates more competition for the venues we have.

Did you know we as taxpayers are subsidising the AECC and the Lemon Tree – and now they want us to borrow money to build competition for these venues we’re already paying for?  It would be to my way of thinking like betting on several horses in a race.  You might win on one of them, but you will lose money.

3. The City Garden is a commercial development – FALSE

This is about creating a new civic space and gardens that will be brought back into daily use… 

(note – see definition above of ‘propaganda’)

…and become part of the daily life of the people of Aberdeen. The space will include exciting new venues for everyone to use and enjoy including a cultural and arts centre, a 500-seat black box theatre and 5,000 seat amphitheatre and stage.  

See my quotes above about these theatre/stage options.  We don’t need them.  We’re already paying for such venues.  The writer of this paper has first set out to ‘bust myths’.  However, they are lapsing into emotive, subjective prose when they say how wonderful this will all be.  We don’t know that – we don’t know anything of the kind.

But now we get to the ‘venues for everyone to use and enjoy’.  Right.  At present, we can come and go as we please when the gardens are open.  No one can prevent us from enjoying the space as we see fit – no one can charge us any fee to use the gardens.  Why?  Because they belong to each and every one of us as Common Good Land.  Are these ‘non-commercial’ theatres going  to be free of any admission charge?  If yes, then fine – they are not commercial.  If no – then they can’t make money and pay off the TIF loan.

And if they charge you money to be on your common good land, then whoever holds the deeds to the land, it is no longer common good land in reality.  Are we going to borrow millions to make a theatre that is free to go to?  If so, why don’t we just close the AECC and Lemon Tree and be done with them?

Who is responsible for joining up all these fuzzy, competing concepts – and why aren’t they actually doing it?

  • The land and all the facilities will remain in the ownership of the City of Aberdeen and its citizens.  

Oh yes, we’ll still own it – but better, wiser, richer people will control it.  You might own it – but try going to a concert for free or getting one of the 25-30 car parking spaces free.  There is every possibility that one private entity or another (why does the two-person Aberdeen City Gardens Trust spring to my mind?) will get a very long lease at a very low rate.  In terms of ownership, ‘possession is 9/10 of the law’.

4. Union Terrace Gardens will be turned into a giant car park – FALSE.

I don’t know where our friends picked up this ‘myth’  – I’ve not heard it.  But there you go.

Parking is at a premium in the city and while many people would indeed wish to see more car-parking in the centre, it will not be in the City Garden. There will be between 25 and 30 underground parking spaces to service the new development.  Old Susannah is no mathematical genius like the ones who work out our city’s budgets; but if we are putting in a 5,000 seat venue and a smaller venue in a city centre already pressured for car parking spaces, then I predict some car parking and car congestion problems.  Wild conclusion I know.

However, if there are 30 underground spaces, they will still need ventilation.  Nothing like that is shown on the plans I’ve seen yet.  But back to the maths.  If we have 5,000 people going to see a Robbie Williams tribute act in the brand new space and 30 parking spaces available at the venue, there just might be a little bit of an issue.

That nice Mr Milne (owner of Triple Kirks – soon to be developed, Chair of ACSEF, one of the anonymity-seeking businesspeople behind the beautiful Vote for the City Gardens Project…) seems to need some car parking space for his beautiful glass box offices which will be adjacent to this great ‘non-commercial’ granite web.  I guess the 30 spaces will take care of that nicely.  Either that, or there will be more than 30 spaces.  A lot more.

As I posted on Facebook this week, it comes down to these points (leaving out the environmental carnage and the Common Good Status, that is):

  • 1. Is TIF a tried and tested financial model in the UK? Not yet.
  • 2. Do we know exactly what this project will cost? No – because the scope is unknown and ever-changing. That is one of the main flaws with Edinburgh’s trams scheme – it kept changing – and now we are looking at nearly one billion cost for it.
  • 3. Is the design fully fleshed out enough for anyone who supports it to fully explain the engineering (vents, how will trees – esp. pines grow, how will ramps be made safe, etc)? No.
  • 4. As the taxpayer is already propping up entertainment venues with tax money, venues that cannot survive without financial aid, does it make any financial sense to create venues to compete with them? No.

So – if you’re not sure about any of these points  – and who is? – then maybe we should not rush into anything.

OS No. 61 – It’s An Ill Wind That Blows Nobody Good

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
Dec 092011
 

Old Susannah reviews the news of Aberdeen’s who’s who for you, blow by blow. 

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A chilly wind blows through town today; it is almost as if the very heavens are in sympathy with Mr Milne, who has lost his £1.7 million pound battle in the Supreme Court.

Who’d have thought it possible? It’s not as if Mr Milne is used to having any losses. So – what’s been going on this week?

The answer is Blowin in the Wind.

Wind Damage: (compound noun) damage to person, property or land caused by extremes in atmospheric wind speed.

The winds have knocked down our brand new City Holiday lights as well, which don’t seem quite so vibrant even if they were briefly very dynamic as they crashed to the ground.  Don’t you worry – I am sure that the City has these brand new lights fully insured.

I don’t know if our ever-dwindling Common Good fund bore the cost of these fabulous lights (I feel better looking at them and bet you do, too), but I know it was money well spent.  Then again, it could have been bought from BiD money, the wonderful scheme wherein some city centre shops voted to stump up money to clean up our high street.

Who could have ever guessed that a gust of wind could show up in the Northeast of Scotland in December, and that giant balls might not have been the best thing to hang over the heads of our pedestrians?  I would say it is a massive  ‘balls up’, but sadly, the balls are going down.  I shall think on these lights fondly, as I  realise this was the best possible expenditure the City could have made.

(I will put out of my mind the story that a  homeless person may have died from exposure on our beach.  The city can’t pay for everything, you know).

Blown off Course: (phrase) To have a person or thing forced off of its course  by adverse wind conditions.

Also because of the wind, there is one less bird of prey at the Scottish Parliament.  A peregrine falcon was being exercised, and a gust of wind blew it off course; it was lost.  Some pigeon fancier who lived very nearby took his trusty gun and blasted this annoying falcon out of the skies.  I guess we’d best re-prioritise and start protecting our endangered pigeons.

Mr Hutchison, of Newmills, Fife, was found guilty of maliciously shooting and killing a working falcon with a .22 air rifle.  Nice work!

Under the Wind: (phrase) to be in a place protected from the wind

And where in Aberdeen can one (in normal circumstances) avoid strong winds?  Why in the sheltering Denburn Valley of course, otherwise known as Union Terrace Gardens.  It is currently a valley, but we are told it must be raised to the level of the rest of Union Street.  It’s this valley that is the cause of all of our woes.  Nit-picking people might ask what will this fantastic public square be like with gale force winds blowing across its flat street-level surface.

I think it might just get a little windy.  Still, we will all be sheltering under the glass worm.  Even if the drawings of this glass thing show that it is open at the bottom and sides, there is no reason to think it won’t be a really cozy place to enjoy your frappucino.  I might not be that comfortable on the monorail John Stewart proposes when the winds blow 90 mph, but I’ll certainly be on it as often as I can otherwise.

Gusts: (noun) short,  strong bursts of wind.

Old Susannah was  on the road to and from Peterhead today, and thought it was a bit windy.  How wonderful – for who loves wind more than the rich and famous?  Rock stars, actors and actresses, millionaires – these people of course love the winds of north Scotland in winter.  With Mr Trump soon to open the universe’s greatest golf course, the jet-setting rich will be queuing up for a place in the holiday homes in the winter months.

I can just imagine Brad and Angelina walking hand-in-hand on the shore in the kind of weather we’re having right now. These resort visitors will be very important gusts indeed.

Hello! Magazine will have to open a branch office in Aberdeen once Donald’s up and running.  Just as well he fixed those previously moving sand dunes!  They might have moved!  With Don jun (junior Donald Trump – a child or clone I think) on hand this week to see things through, we’ll be rolling in dosh and created jobs before you know it. There is only one obstacle left to conquer.

Windmills: (noun) devices  for capturing energy from wind and harnessing it for practical purposes.

We will not have  these important VIPS if we also go ahead and build windmills that they might  actually have to look at while they stroll the no-longer-moving sand dunes in  February.  As the 90 mile per hour wind howls in their faces as they attempt to golf before the sun goes down at 4pm, the last thing we want to do is make them look at windmills.  These offshore Satanic mills must be stopped at all costs.  The offshore wind turbines must not go ahead – but is there someone up to the job?

Blowhard: (noun) a person who boasts or brags in an irritating fashion.  A loud, brash, showy individual.

I know Donald Trump has a very large staff  working round the clock on his successful developments.  I only hope there is somewhere hidden in the Donald Trump organisation someone who  is a blowhard who can stand up against the windfarm plans.  If anyone with any experience of the Donald Trump organisation can think of  anyone in it who can be a bit of an obnoxious, aggressive irritating blowhard, please get in touch.

Blowing hot and cold: (phrase) to have contradictory characteristics

You could have been forgiven for thinking Mr Milne had some nerve taking us to the Supreme Court.  It would be unkind to suggest such a thing.
Person or persons unknown in Aberdeen City Council sold him land at a discount for a fraction of its cost, and he agreed to share any profit.  It’s not Stew’s fault i selling this land (worth £5.6 million which cost him all of £375,000) meant his legal costs were over £500,000.  It must have been complex, selling land from your left hand to your right hand – the companies involved were Milne entities.  Why exactly he had to sell from one part of his empire to another is a business matter we couldn’t possibly understand.  It might look as if he wanted to avoid sharing profit with Aberdeen City, but I am sure that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Our City council tells us it always gets value for money.  Fantastic. Our city council sold Milne land for some 5,225,000 less than it was worth.  Our city council cannot possibly afford a referendum on whether or not to build a giant worm and/or monolith where we have the Denburn Valley.

I could be wrong, but on the odd occasion I think ACC just might blow hot and cold.

Putting the Wind up: (phrase) to make nervous or upset.

Attention councillors:  the elections are in May.  This may put the wind up some of you.  You know who you are.  Gerry Brough is getting the wind up as well – he wants the garden project underway before the elections.  I don’t think so Ger.  Some council officers might want to start clearing their desks (and no doubt shredding documents) soon, too.

Next week:  Part 1 of  ‘An Aberdeen Christmas Carol’ (with apologies to Charles Dickens).  Unfortunately I am at a loss as to what local  I can possibly cast as a mean, domineering, money-loving megalomaniac.  No doubt something will come to me, touch wood.

 

Old Susannah’s Journal No. 35 – Prize Quiz Special

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Creative Writing, Opinion, Satire and Humour  No Responses »
May 122011
 

Voice’s Old Susannah, thrown by the absence of interesting local news this week, takes us on a humorous diversion and challenges our grasp of local knowledge.

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Not much going on in the Granite City this week.   There is the lovely new £120,000 statue of Robert the Bruce for openers; I have seen people gasping at awe at this wonder.

Some old Lib Dem was found guilty of hanging about in a dodgy part of town at night, apparently looking after the well-being of his younger constituents.
Then again, perhaps he was only after some votes or help with his polI.   There was also something about a deer cull, but I can’t recall what it was.  Doubtless the Council have everything in hand.

Perhaps it’s time for a bit of humour, and so here is the first (and maybe last) Old Susannah News Quiz.  The first correct entry drawn out of a hat wins a coffee date with Aileen Malone (to be confirmed), or failing that, I will plant a tree in my garden in the winner’s name.   Or buy you a Brewdog (proof of age required.  Drinking to excess can cause health problems and leave you looking like some of our councillors.  Don’t vote on important issues while drinking).

Good luck.  Actually – good luck to us all.

 

Question 1: Billionaire Sir Ian Wood had his photo in the Evening Express this week on the occasion of having been put on the UK’s rich list.  He posed in front of a verdant green background ablaze with red flowers, against a dramatic Aberdeen city centre skyline.  Where was this eyesore, and what should become of it?

Question 2: Match the cartoon character in Aberdeen with their fictional counterpart

a.  Dolores Umbridge – in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels Umbridge is described as short, squat, looking like a toad, and is often wearing pink sweaters (in an attempt to look a bit feminine).  She has iron-coloured curls, and works for the Government.  She is more often than not hurting the vulnerable and abusing her government office.  She wants to dominate everyone around her, and is a supporter of the forces of evil.

b.  Boss Hogg –  from the Dukes of Hazzard TV series and movie, this jumped up little man has his finger in every pie.  Greedy, scheming, unethical, always trying to own everything in the county.  Folically challenged, Boss Hogg often wore silly things on his head to disguise his baldness.  This short-of-stature villain was also short on morals and treated the police as his paid flunkies.

c.   Cruella deVil – a coarse, cruel, scheming woman out to destroy innocent creatures for her own strange fulfilment.  Willing to stop at nothing to achieve her bloody ends.  Frightening to children of all ages.

d.  Father Ted – who can forget grey-haired Father Ted and the rest of Craggy Island’s inhabitants?  Father Ted, for all his scheming and quests for money, was always caught with his hand in the kitty, and was forever forced to explain financial conundrums.  “The money was only resting in my account” was his frequent catchphrase.

Fictional figures:

A.  Former Councillor Scott Cassie – he and his wife are helping police with their enquiries about a wee bit of missing money.  This didn’t stop Cassie from voting on some crucial recent issues (I seem to think I saw him at the Loirston Loch hearing).  Alas, he will no longer have a street named after him.  However, there is a rumour that one of the Cayman Island Banks now offers a ‘Scott Cassie Emergency Fund’ account.

B.  Millionaire Propety Typhoon Stewart Milne – loads of money, just not enough to spend on improving AFC’s team or – heaven forfend – to solve the deer cull crisis at one go.  Good at buying property at less than market value from our ever-vigilant City Council.  Value for Money indeed.

C.  The Nation’s sweetheart Aileen ‘Ho’Malone – Who can forget her brave stance on the deer cull issue?  She alone was not afraid to stifle Nigg Community Council (and yours truly) from speaking this week before the Committee she convenes decided to shoot the deer.  She is all hart, and with her doe-eyed stare, her inner compassion and honesty shine through.  I wonder if she has any fur coats?

D.  Go-getting Kate Dean – Planning supremo.  What can I say about this woman that hasn’t already been said (or that would pass the censors)?  ‘I was elected to do a job, and I’m going to do it’ was her rallying-cry during the cuts protests.  When she is going to start doing what she was elected to do (or resign) is anyone’s guess.

Question 3: What percentage of £50,000,000 (the sum Sir Ian promises for his Union Terrace Garden parking lot) would £225,000 (the sum demanded not to shoot the Tullos Hill Roe deer) represent?  Is it:  a. 10%,   b. 1%,  c. .5%  or  d.  0.5%?

Question 4: Which is an endangered species:  The Tullos Hill Roe Deer or the Liberal Democrats, which were so badly wounded in the recent election.  Deer, Dems – or both?

Question 5: Tiebreaker (answer question of your choice):  How many Liberal Democrats does it take to change a lightbulb?  Why did the LibDem cross the road?

 

I trust you will all forgive me (or maybe you’re glad) that I am putting in a shorter than usual piece this week.  I’ve been busy fighting the forces of evil, and in pursuing a Freedom of Information appeal, which may yet prove very interesting.  Can’t say more than that yet.

But I can say thank you to those people in the media (Danny Law especially), all the campaigners (you know who you are), and the four brave  councillors who stood up for the deer.  One thing I will say is that the issue will not, despite HoMalone’s wishes, go away.

Old Susannah’s Journal No.34 – Police State Special

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
May 062011
 

Voice’s Old Susannah casts her eye over recent events, stories, and terms and phrases familiar as well as freshly ‘spun’, which will be forever etched in the consciousness of the people of Aberdeen and the Northeast.

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Old Susannah checked her mailbox every day for the past few weeks, but never did get the invitation to the royal wedding.

I still went to London – not to stand out side of the palace to look at two people kissing, mind you – but just to see some friends and catch up on the latest fashions.  Just as well I didn’t go – I would have been wearing the same outfit and hat as Princess Beatrix (you remember the giant beige bow on her head?).

At the end of the day, I can safely say I was as emotional about the wedding as the rest of you .

Then it was time to vote.  The votes are still rolling at while I am writing; no doubt there will be some surprises.  Next year’s election will be key for Aberdeen; if we can only persuade the talented, selfless, intelligent individuals we have in the City Council to stay in place, we can look forward to more of the same prosperity, open government, security and prestige that we have today.

You won’t be surprised to hear that the Tullos Hill Roe Deer are still very high on every thinking person’s agenda – on the 10th I will approach HoMalone and her Committee, asking for a chance to speak on the subject.

Theoretically I shouldn’t be allowed to – the official papers for the Committee don’t mention the deer (these people don’t like mentioning deer, do they – whether in public consultations, or to the Torry Community Council).

No doubt they will let me speak, now that they know that Torry Community Council was bypassed in this sad affair and have unanimously condemned the cull.  Malone is quoted in the P&J this week as saying if the money isn’t offered for fencing, then the deer die.  Still, she sent me an email saying the Committee members were going to vote on the cull.

It is almost as if she is not sure of what is going on.  Still, my being at the Council should give her and me a nice chance to chat and get to know each other.  I hope she will be very happy in the £60 million Marischal building at her new desk in her new chair, safe in the knowledge she saved the taxpayer £225,000 for fencing.

But on with some definitions….

POLICE STATE SPECIAL

Firstly, most of the police are simply trying to keep the peace and keep us safe.  Hats off to them.  A small minority however are working for the rich and powerful, and some are (literally) taking the piss – I refer to the young officer who tried to dilute his drink-drive urine sample with water – what would have happened to one of us had we been caught in similar circumstances?

Patronise:
1.  to support, fund, encourage – e.g. the Renaissance painters were patronised by the wealthy and powerful Borgia and DeMedici families.  2.  to treat someone as infantile or childlike, or as otherwise incapable of understanding – unusually used in a derogatory sense.

A few months ago, our Grampian police cars sported the Stewart Milne Company logo – people who saw these cars did a double-take and stopped smoking funny cigarettes for a while – and then conducted some research.

It turns out that Stewart Milne Group is patronising the police by actually giving them money for some form of initiative or other.  In return the police take Milne advertising on their cars.  I have never seen this before.  I think it is a great plan.  Perhaps the BNP can pay for some new riot gear/crowd control equipment?  Who knows where this patronising/advertising scheme can take us?

Coincidentally, a few months ago at the Loirston Loch development hearing, the cost of policing the brand-new stadium was discussed – and it was suggested that AFC would have to bear the costs of policing any events.  I almost thought a faint shadow crossed Mr Milne’s shiny forehead at the words.  How unfair!  After all, the stadium will be to everyone’s benefit: the locals, farmers, wildlife – so we taxpayers should be proud to contribute.  I may make an extra contribution and see if I can get the police to wear ‘Old Susannah’ or ‘Aberdeen Voice’ badges on their lapels – we shall see.  At any rate, it must have been my imagination, but at this suggestion of AFC paying policing costs,

Fast forward to 2nd May and the Press & Journal.  Our very own – or rather Stewart Milne’s very own Chief of Police, has made a statement that AFC stewards can handle everything, and police are not needed.  I will have to take his word on this – he is the expert.  Any comments he made will of course be free from the fact that Milne has patronised the police.  No doubt a few stewards will have the same training, crowd control and knowledge of our local constabulary.  I would be quite happy for the police to continue their normal duties (ie contacting social activists about their activities and ‘incidents’ – see below).

Things are now so safe and violence free in the world of Scottish Football that letter-bombs are being posted to football managers, little boys are headbutted for wearing the wrong team’s jersey, and behaviour at ‘Old Firm’ matches are reminiscent of candlelit suppers.

So yes, the police are being patronised by Milne.  This has no influence on them at all.  I wonder, though – why do I feel just a little patronised?

Intimidate:

Verb.  to attempt to frighten with threats; to coerce, to deal with political activists.

I hope we are all behaving and keeping in line; if not, you might quite rightly get a social call from the police.

This may be to help them with an ‘incident’ or ‘inquiry’ about protest activity, your taking photos at Balmedie – sorry – Trumpland, or your publicising the fact Aberdeen City has one or two empty buildings which could be used.  The police will show up at  some convenient time, and to let you know they are not intimidating you, they might talk to your friends and employer.

If you have been so bold as to speak to security guards, then you will have some serious explaining to do – or that’s what some activists have just found out.  If this happens to you, you can always ask to go to the police station for a chat rather than having them in your home.  You can always call a lawyer and have them over should the police want a friendly word.  But you should never go public with such a visit – this might make the police involved look bad.  And we can’t have that.

Opportunity Theft:

Noun – a type of petty theivery facilitated by ease of access to the desired objects.

One October about 2-3 years ago, I  found a wallet with a fair amount of cash – but the ID was in Polish, and I had no clue how to contact the rightful owner.  So I dutifully turned it into the Grampian Police Station.

A woman in the lost and found property section (just through the door on the left as you enter the station) took the wallet.  She didn’t seem that keen to take my details, so I offered them.  I also asked her for a receipt, which she declined to give me – probably part of a cost-saving exercise so I thought.  Some weeks passed, and I called to find out if the wallet had been returned to its owner.  I spoke to a woman – I presume the same one who was extremely vague on  the subject.  “If the wallet isn’t claimed, you can have the money” she said.

A few months after that a small piece in the paper caught my eye:  a woman working for the police had been arrested for…. stealing items from the lost property section.  Apparently she had been ‘taking her work home with her’ over a number of months.  I guess a girl’s got to supplement her income somehow.  I have since found one or two other items – but if I can’t find out who owns them, then I hold onto them.

I don’t know what kind of sentence the woman received, but I am sure they will have wanted to make an example of her:  we can’t have bad cops can we?

Military Manoeuvre:

Noun – to practice for battle conditions by scaring the bejesus out of the locals.  Perhaps the invasion of northern Scotland is much more imminent than we realise:  the armed forces are continuously staging ‘exercises’ in our airspace.

We need exercises – it helps burn fuel, increase the demand for military equipment, and thus stimulates the economy.

The truly vigilant jet pilot on exercise will be poised to intercept any aircraft in his path in the interests of national security.  If any oil industry helicopters should happen to be in operation during a manoeuvre, then they get what they deserve.  The military can hardly be expected to tell the civil aviation authorities that an exercise is underway – it would spoil the surprise.

Last July a passenger-carrying offshore helicopter was involved in a near-miss with a Typhoon jet – the jet pilot obviously mistook the copter for an invasion force, perhaps from Greenland or Faroe.  Good on him – you can’t be too careful these days.  The cost of a Typhoon jet is about £90 million in case you’re looking for a last-minute gift.  There have been a few multimillion pound problems with delays, technical difficulties and the like – but I can speak for us all when I say we are much safer with these jets looking for enemies in our airspace.

 

Freedom Of Information? – Not In Aberdeen

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, Opinion  No Responses »
Feb 112011
 

Voice’s Suzanne Kelly tells of her attempts to  use Freedom Of Information (FOI) Legislation to find out exactly what property the City of Aberdeen has sold to Stewart Milne/ Stewart Milne companies.

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Stewart Milne Construction and its related companies certainly seem to own a fair amount of land in Aberdeen and surrounding areas.

I formally made a Freedom of Information request to the City to find out what public properties were sold by the Council to Milne-related companies.

After a nine week wait for a reply to the original FOI request submitted by e-mail on 9 December 2010, the City declined to supply any information.   The City information office sent two documents explaining the rationale for declining the request; the reasons given in these documents can be summarised as follows:-

  • it would cost too much (£1200) to answer, and
  • making this information public would damage the Council’s relationships with its suppliers.

(   Copies of response letters can be viewed below. )

The public should have the right to know how its assets, in this case land, are disposed of.  It must be remembered that  the City and Mr Milne have recently been in court over one of these deals. It appears that land in the west of the city was sold to a Milne company for less than market value,  and that there was an agreement that any sale profits would be shared with the City. After legal action on the Council’s part to recover some of the perceived profit, it came out that Milne sold land from one branch of his empire to another, and claimed no share was therefore due to the Council.

Oddly, the courts are thus far not sharing Milne’s opinion. However, Milne is reportedly taking the City, and therefore the taxpayer, back to court to appeal this latest judgment:  this is why it is imperative that we are told what else he or his companies bought from the City, and what the sale prices and actual values were.

What exactly lies behind Aberdeen’s lack of transparency?

The City disagrees with this assessment, so an appeal will be lodged to its Information Officer over the refusal to answer the FOI request.   The City also seems to have confused its dates somewhat.

The official letters denying my information request refer to the request date as 22 January. Is this inefficiency, or a deliberate attempt to obscure the original 9 December e-mail request date?

The City asked me to clarify my request on 23rd December, which I did the same day.      It is most definitely relevant to the citizens of cash-strapped Aberdeen to know what kind of deals have been done.  Aberdeen citizens are facing millions of pounds’ worth of services cuts; local schools are closing, and children and people with special needs are being told to expect yet more cuts.

If the City is continuing to sell off assets at less than market value (despite Audit Scotland’s recent criticism), then something is greatly amiss.   The facts are these – I first sent an e-mail on 9 December asking for information as follows:-

“I have tried unsuccessfully to find the following using your website – please provide it to me under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, many thanks.

1.  List of property (including but not limited to land, buildings, building services, material goods, etc.) Aberdeen City sold to the Stewart Milne Group, Stewart Milne Homes and/or any associated companies, and/or directly to Mr Stewart Milne. List to show property name/description, date of sale, sale price, minutes/reports of the City Council approving/recommending the sale, and if available the market value at time of sale.

2.  List of property or services (including but not limited to land, buildings, building services, material goods, etc.), the Stewart Milne Group, Stewart Milne Homes and/or any associated companies, and/or directly to Mr Stewart Milne sold, managed or built for Aberdeen City Council. List to show property name/description, date of sale, price, reports/minutes of the City Council recommending the purchase, and if available the market value at time of sale.If any aspect of this request is not clear, then please contact me directly for clarification.”

Information Not Held - Click to Enlarge
The Council responded by email on 23 December, asking what I meant by Stewart Milne companies, and what time frame I had in mind (which may indicate the sales cover a long period of time).

When I received the request for clarification, I immediately visited the Companies House website, and immediately replied with a list of near a dozen entities bearing the Stewart Milne name which are registered in Scotland.

I also reminded the City’s Information Officer that I wanted a complete list and had no dates in mind.   Weeks passed; I sent two further reminders and finally wrote that I would be contacting the Scottish Information Officer.

Excessive Cost - Click to Enlarge
This prompted a next-day reply which was a refusal to comply.   The Freedom of Information Act is meant to give all citizens access to data held by elected officials and public bodies.

In cases where disclosure of requested information would be too costly or would prove a serious breach of security or confidentiality, or would damage fiscal relationships, information may be withheld.

If the requestor is not satisfied with the response received, they have access to the non-partisan Scottish Information Officer, who can order disclosure of information.

.. 

Notice Of Refusal - Click to Enlarge
What exactly lies behind Aberdeen’s lack of transparency?   What ‘supplier relationships’ are under threat if the transactions are revealed?

How can it cost £1200 to supply a list of property sold and Council Committee Minutes approving such sales, keeping in mind most Minutes are already on the City’s intranet site?

Who has been involved in the transactions and the decisions regarding my request?

 ( Click on images to enlarge )