Is Government Reporting Any Good?

 Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion  3 Responses »
Nov 062012
 

The Iraq war was rubber-stamped despite the wishes of protesting millions; the justification that then Prime Minister Tony Blair used was a report. This report had been notoriously ‘sexed up’ to the extent that the Americans refused to endorse it. Blair aide, the foul-mouthed Alistair Campbell, was one of the main editors of this ‘dodgy dossier’.  Blair stood by its robustness. We all know better now. Suzanne Kelly examines the quality standards of the reports on which life-changing decisions are taken.

Town House1
Closer to home, what kinds of reporting standards are we seeing? Very poor ones, I’m afraid.

A report prepared for Aberdeen FC’s stadium plans for Loirston included a lengthy commentary from MSP Brian Adam, who favoured the project.

Labour MSP Richard Baker’s comments against the stadium were excluded from this report, leaving it unbalanced. At the time, Kate Dean first insisted that Baker missed the deadline, but Baker proved otherwise. Dean later apologised, but by then, the hearing was long finished, and planning permission was granted.

PriceWaterhouse Cooper were hired as consultants for the City Gardens Project. They were paid out of public funds and Scottish Enterprise was involved in the invoicing arrangements.

PwC used a very small sample of business people in its research, yet somehow came to the conclusion that 6500 permanent new jobs would be created by the Granite Web and £122m would flow into Aberdeen every year until 2023, this also due to the Web. These figures were seized on by Vote for the City Gardens Project during the referendum and printed as if they were factual in VftCGP literature.

PwC did quite handsomely from the consultation (£41100 in March 2010, for example), and might well have gained further work from SE, the Aberdeen City Gardens Trust or other involved party, had the Web gone ahead.

When questioned as to the appropriateness of their projections being used in an advertising campaign during the referendum, PwC declined to comment, saying the work had been done for ‘a private client’ – despite the taxpayer picking up the bill.

Had the reports using these figures to justify the Web included further background on the statistics used, and details of the money already paid to PwC? For purposes of transparency and accuracy, one would hope so.
See:  PwC Invoices To Aberdeen Council 

The report sealing the fate of Tullos Hill’s roe deer and many of its other former flora and fauna, was created by the City Council’s Peter Leonard, a senior civil servant in Housing, and by CJ Piper & Associates, an entity related to one Chris Piper, the man who stood to gain tens of thousands of pounds if Phase 2 of the Tree for Every Citizen scheme went ahead.

The report is riddled with bias, not least of which is the assertion that objections to the cull came from a ‘small but vociferous minority’. In reality, 2,500 people signed a petition handed to Aileen Malone, and three community councils representing tens of thousands of citizens, and animal charities including Animal Concern Advice Line and Scottish SPCA condemned the cull.

Piper made some £44000 from the tree scheme. Should the report have noted his obvious financial interest? Definitely.
See: Piper Report re. Tullos Hill: Page 48

It would be bad enough if this kind of bias was an isolated event; it is not. We recently saw a report concluding that elected councillors were treating the city’s administration in a ‘bullying’ manner. The report also claims that councillors don’t fully understand what the administration does.

It is wholly one-sided, despite its assertions to the contrary. If it had been thorough, it surely would have picked up on the many failings of the unelected senior administration, such as the dubious reports going out from their departments.

Councillors on committees will all tell you that they have to make their votes based on the reports before them – reports that are almost all prepared by the administration. Most of these reports are required to adhere to values which have all but lost their meaning. Reports have to relate to ‘vibrant and dynamic’ aspirations, have to prove the programme in question will deliver ‘value for money’, and so on.

From national ‘sexed up’ reports to those on local issues, information given to those who have to vote on their contents must  become more accurate and details of any consultants employed and those involved in preparation must be included in the contents.

At present, Aberdeen’s reporting system relies on a formula which is far from perfect.

There is always an opening section which requires the writer to say whether or not the proposal fits with ‘vibrant/dynamic’ and other archaic criteria. The report writer is supposed to indicate whether or not there are financial implications. In many cases, the financial implications are overlooked.

For instance, we were promised that the Tree for Every Citizen scheme was ‘cost neutral’. Even when the primary report’s author Pete Leonard surely realised the scheme was not cost neutral (ie when the £43800 refund was demanded for the failure of Phase I and when no sponsors came forward to pay for  Phase 2 and its deer cull), no correction was publicly issued or sent to councillors on the Housing Committee.

The failures are mounting up.

Perhaps it is time for report writers to pay less heed to the existing report framework’s demands for rhetoric about ‘vibrancy’ and the like, and be required to ensure that all future reports include a form along these lines:

Preparers

Internal Preparers

  • Author(s)
  • Editor(s) (if any changes made to original author’s report)

External Preparers

  • Name
  • Company
  • Company type: (sole trader, limited company, PLC)
  • Company registration no

Conflict of Interest Issues

  • Financial
  • Fee paid for assistance, consultancy, preparation of this report to date
  • Any additional fee to be paid specific to this report
  • Is there any likelihood the external preparer will be hired for further assistance if this report and/or its recommendations is accepted?
  • Estimate of the extent of further earnings the preparer could earn from acceptance of this report and/or its recommendations

Other

  • Does this report contain any statement or input from a political party or politicians?
  • If so, have other parties been offered an opportunity to give their input?
  • Does the author, editor or preparer have any personal interest in the issues contained in the report?

Exclusions

  • Has the editor deleted any substantial part or parts of the original report? (if so, these must be listed)
  • Does this report cover all of the known, relevant factors pertaining to the issues?

Until we can rely on the information in the reports going to our elected officials, and the impartiality of those involved in preparing them, we will continue to have a flawed system subject to abuse. It’s time for a ‘vibrant and dynamic’ overhaul of our city’s reporting standards – if not the country’s.

  •  Comments enabled – see comments box below. Note, all comments will be moderated.

Tullos Deer Cull: ACC Risked YOUR Life

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Featured, News  No Responses »
May 112012
 

Suzanne Kelly reports on the serious issues raised by the modus operandi of Aberdeen City Council with regard to the recent deer cull.

A roe deer fawn born on Tullos Hill 2011. probably now culled by Aberdeen City Council.
It is nearly two weeks since the general public were dismayed to learn that 22 of 29 deer were destroyed to further the ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme which was so vigorously promoted by the Liberal Democrats and a handful of City Officials.
As an indicator of how extremely unscientific this entire project is, it seems that only one deer count was done before the shooting started, and it failed to identify the sex of half of the deer it counted.

The shooting secretly started around 18 February (an early start which needed Scottish Natural Heritage approval), and seems to have continued until the end of the official season. 

It is only now that the general public realise that a gunman was on the hill shooting a rifle:  and that the City took a lethal risk to people’s lives to kill the deer.

This article looks at the risks we didn’t know were being taken with our safety, and recommends the entire matter be made the subject of a city council investigation, possibly with impartial, outside agency involvement.

A document entitled ‘Granite City Forest Deer Management – Risk Assessment’ was obtained some time ago under Freedom of Information legislation.

It can be found at http://suzannekelly.yolasite.com/

This document alarmingly acknowledged that hazards identified included:

  •  “Injury from firearm discharge (either via blocked barrel or obstructed view) when shooting deer;
  •  “Uncontrolled access to firearm(s) and ammunition; and
  •  “Trajectory of bullets beyond target (ie living roe deer) impacting on non target species” (ie anything from small birds and mammals to people).

This document acknowledges that ‘who might be harmed’ included not only those involved in destroying the deer, but also the general public.

Having identified the hazards listed above, the document goes on to answer ‘who might be harmed’ and ‘what harm might result’, although its treatment of the issues is superficial at best.  The harm that might have occurred included ‘Possibility of fatal injuries from misuse of / damage to firearms’.

The main reason no one believed any culling was going on was the complete absence of any notices to that effect being put up.

For some inexplicable reason – which needs to be scrutinised along with so many features of this whole sorry saga – is the absence from the report of many other possibilities, including the obvious risk of non-fatal injuries of many kinds to the general public and ‘other species’.

The control measures sited as risk mitigation are almost laughable – but the real issue is the ‘who might have been harmed’ aspect:  the shooting was going on while people were still on the hill.  This is wholly unacceptable.

You may wonder why I am only highlighting this Risk Assessment document now – the answers are very simple.  For starters, the police were asked on several occasions if they knew of any shooting for the deer cull taking place, and the answer was always no.  Councillors who had asked to be informed of any shooting seem not to have been kept in the loop, either.

But the main reason no one believed any culling was going on was the complete absence of any notices to that effect being put up.  The very first ‘Contingency arrangements required to reduce risk’ item listed in the Risk Assessment is this:

“Cautionary notices will be placed at all known access points to the sites where deer management is taking place.”

No one I spoke with, nor anyone I know who visited the hill regularly (and many went with the specific aim of watching out for culling activities) ever saw a sign or notice to this effect whatsoever.  I was keen to visit as often as possible after dusk, and made many trips (only seeing a deer close up once in a gorse thicket which has now been bulldozed).

The question must be asked – did City officials decide not to erect any signs to keep this unpopular cull secret?  If the answer is yes, then our lives and safety were recklessly risked for propaganda purposes.

We now have to wait to find out what days shooting took place, who posted the notices, how big they were, and where they were posted.  I can promise you that I never saw any, and I have been using four different entrance points, including the main entrance where the Loirston Park sign is.

The City also relied on the expertise of the shooter – but even the best marksmen make errors.  Think of the high-profile American accidental shooting – allegedly by Cabinet Member Dick Cheney of a Mr Whittington.  In the UK, hunting accidents also happen.  Finding reliable statistics is not quite so easy – internet searches for hunting accidents seem to result in the appearance of pro-hunting lobbyists putting up unrelated (and questionable) statistics about damage done by deer.

The Health and Safety Executive seems to lump hunting, forestry and all agricultural accidents into one category – in which there are hundreds of accidents any year.

 These questions need to be answered, and I will be formally calling on authorities to have a comprehensive investigation.

Whatever the numbers are, the presence of a notice of shooting on the hill would have at least let people make an informed judgement as to whether to be on the hill or not.  But just like the consultation on the trees (which deliberately omitted mention of a cull or the cost of the previous failure – or the sheer scale of trees proposed) – someone, somewhere took the information needed for our decision-making out, and hid it.

A sign would not have been much use at dawn or dusk; how could it have been visible? Any sign should have been put up in several languages (Polish and French visitors frequent the hill and a sign in English might have been of no use to such people at all).  But a sign and the requirement for the shooter to be diligent are hardly sufficient mitigation for potential lethal risk.  The shooter is also meant not to hunt ‘…when public, contractors or other ACC operatives are known to be on site’.

This is almost meaningless:  access was not prohibited, the site is massive, and bullets can travel a long, long way.  How could anyone possibly ascertain no people were in the vicinity?

It is one thing to create a Risk Assessment document.  It is quite another for its robustness and completeness to be agreed and for it to be approved.  Who wrote this document?  Who was involved in agreeing it was fit for purpose?  Whose name ultimately went on a document which acknowledged lethal risk?  Were signs used or not?  These questions need to be answered, and I will be formally calling on authorities to have a comprehensive investigation.

A former ghillie I know tells me how very difficult it is to shoot a deer, and in his experience deer were known to be injured severely if not brought down with the first initial shot.  Some wounded deer can completely evade the hunter, and travel great distances before dying in shock and pain of blood loss and internal injury.

Our man from the Aberdeen City Council with a license has been shooting things for over 20 years, according to the risk assessment document; are we to suppose his eyesight has not deteriorated at all in this time period? Statistically if he shot 22 animals, how likely or otherwise is it that each and every animal died instantly where it stood?

  These deer were nearly tame; people who stay in the nearby caravans advise they had fed the deer by hand

Ironically, the deer shooter referred to in the document is also a point of contact between the Scottish SPCA and the city council:  the Scottish SPCA has been opposed to this cull from the idea’s inception.  It is unclear whether the shooter would have been likely to report any bad shots or injured deer he caused to the Scottish SPCA.

The remains of a deer were pointed out to me in an area which had a great deal of tree and plant life – could this deer have not died of natural causes (starvation seemed unlikely amid the sources of food) – but rather could it have been wounded, run away and died of shock, slowly and painfully?  We will have to wait for a FOI request which asked how many shots were fired, and how many animal carcasses were removed.

These deer were nearly tame; people who stay in the nearby caravans advise they had fed the deer by hand and grown food specifically for them.  This makes it even more galling that the Risk Assessment provides for putting the carcasses of these much-loved animals into the food chain.  But that is exactly what happened.  In an almost sarcastic turn, the risk assessment covers the point that the man preparing the animals for food might be at risk of cutting himself on his sharp knives, or sprain a muscle moving the dead animals.

For the record, the level of fatal injury to you or I was calculated to be at the lowest level.

It is likely that Ranger Ian Tallboys, staunch supporter of the cull (although he seems never to have formally proposed a cull before the tree scheme became a political promise) did the shooting and the preparing of the carcasses for meat.  He is about the longest-serving ranger I am aware of, and part of the ‘control measures’ were to have an ‘experienced and competent operative’ perform the shooting.

Tallboy’s current silence on the matter is matched only by his silence over building the football stadium at Loirston in the Special Areas of Conservation area, and the silence of Aileen Malone post election.  Malone was the main proponent of the scheme, often claiming it was ‘cost neutral’ – a claim now completely debunked.

Another person responsible for the whole scheme is Peter Leonard, city council officer, whose original report to the Housing & Environment Committee was the death knell for the deer.  The contents of his report need some urgent investigation; claims of ‘cost neutral’ planting, advice against tree guards, etc. etc. have been shown to be inaccurate if not misleading.

  Only a proper investigation will get to the bottom of the genesis and management of this unwanted, unprofitable, destructive scheme

There are now the correct size tree guards in place – the City initially bought smaller than recommended guards.

Furthermore, the SNH and the City corresponded saying tree guards were unsuitable as they had ‘visual impact’.

What has changed?

Leonard also seems to have had a hand in the disappearance of  Councillor Cooney’s paper on keeping Tullos as a meadowland; Leonard is on record as saying that the meadow would be more expensive than imposing an 89,000 tree forest and killing the deer:  how exactly he reached this conclusion will be interesting to determine; he should be invited to explain how and when his research reached this conclusion, how he reached conclusions in his original report which now seem incorrect, and whether or not he had a hand in Cooney’s paper disappearing from sight.

The actions of some of our officers and unelected city employees seem to have fallen unfailingly into the plans of the Liberal Democrats.

Only a proper investigation will get to the bottom of the genesis and management of this unwanted, unprofitable, destructive scheme, and find out who did / did not overstep the bound of their job, and whether any political (or other) pressure was used to bring us to where we are now.

If you care about the future of Tullos Hill, all of its (remaining) creatures and meadow; if you care about a small minority of persons dictating to thousands who oppose their plans; if you care that tens of thousands of pounds have been spent which could have been better used elsewhere – then please write to your councillors and ask for an inquiry to be held.

The deer are dead – and you and your families were possibly put at risk.  The issues thrown up must be investigated so that there is never a repeat performance.

Shot For Trees? – Tullos Hill Update

 Aberdeen City, Featured, Opinion  No Responses »
Apr 122012
 

What has happened on Tullos Hill lately? What happened to the deer? Suzanne Kelly, who first covered the Tullos Hill deer cull story almost a year ago in May 2011, updates Aberdeen Voice readers.

deerrun
Deer Cull

First, I am sorry to say but the cull seems to have happened. I have several sources who witnessed a silver Land Rover and one (unconfirmed) who spoke to a hunter. How many animals were shot so far, and whether more will be destroyed, is now subject of a Freedom of Information request.

Three separate sources have similar stories to tell – a silver Range Rover seen on the hill several times by different people and reports of lights flashing at night on the hill set the scene to support that Aileen Malone, Ranger Ian Tallboys, ‘consultant’ Chris Piper and Peter Leonard have had their way, and had deer shot.

A source told me he confronted a man on the hill who was clearly a hunter ; this hunter apparently said the Tullos deer were being shot during the season, which just ended. The hunter allegedly said that deer were ‘like rabbits with long legs’, and that ‘usually’ they were killed with one clean shot. A further night-time count, according to the hunter, confirmed that there were some 30 deer on the hill.

Perhaps worst of all, according to this hunter, under the new guidelines only one buck and a few does can be supported in the large Tullos Hill area. (A life-long country resident and countryside expert I consulted tells me this figure ‘seems extremely mean’). If this statement is true, then it spells the end for a healthy gene pool: you don’t have to be a scientist to see this is nonsense. Animal welfare groups and experts have repeatedly protested against the cull on scientific as well as ethical grounds, and advised that the deer move between several sites.

Animal experts will be asked to weigh in on the number of deer that the hill can support. If the new law which just came into effect truly says that only one buck and a doe or two would be the maximum, then – as Charles Dickens famously wrote – ‘the law is an ass.’

Bureaucracy

I’d written to the Forestry Commission and called to remind them that three community councils panned the City’s poor, misleading & incomplete consultation. This ‘phase 2 consultation’ appeared online and mentioned nothing about putting a massive 89,000 trees on Tullos (which if they stood a chance of growing would change the existing environment forever – the effect on everything from birds to fungi will be profound) or about shooting our deer.

No one in the local area seems to want this, and very many people have said ‘no’ to it by writing to the City and by signing petitions.

every gorse plant, every fern and every other green thing has been replaced by a beige coloured wasteland

So what did the Forestry Commission advise me? They said to correspond with the city.
Valerie Watts has already refused to correspond with me on this issue any further (failing to answer relevant, pointed, specific questions).

More to the point, the Forestry Commission was told the consultation was fine by the Tree for Every Citizen Scheme’s proponents – and is now choosing to ignore the people of Aberdeen who are saying the consultation was a farce.

Clearly, writing to the City, which naturally sticks to the ‘robustness’ (in their words) of the consultation, would be pointless in the extreme.

However, this consultation was not just a nicety – it was supposed to be a requirement for the scheme proceeding. In a slide presentation (which is general to say the least) Ranger Tallboys infers the consultation was correct; his presentation uses a photo of people looking at a map in a seeming attempt to illustrate the concept of consultation.

The robustness of the consultation is also attested to in a December 2011 report written by CJ Piper (the consultant the City hired who has thus far been paid at least £44,000) and the City (specific author unspecified, but one must assume Tallboys and Leonard had a hand in it at least). The document seems to be part of the application the city made for this next phase.

The draft application certainly looked faulty to me, and this December 2011 report entitled “Aberdeen City Council, The Granite City Forest ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ Programme, Tullos Hill Community Woodland” is worthy of some further analysis.

Aberdeen City Council, The Granite City Forest “Tree for Every Citizen” Programme, Tullos Hill Community Woodland: A study in self-promotion, propaganda and whitewash.

It is not possible to ignore the cover of this report for openers; it has a picture of Tullos, wherein every gorse plant, every fern and every other green thing has been replaced by a beige coloured wasteland which makes Death Valley appear as a welcoming oasis. Imposing a forest on this barren empty area would look a good idea (well played, Aberdeen City Council).

  Page Four’s first paragraph advises the reader how ‘vibrant and dynamic’ the ‘vision’ is.

A look at the table of contents for this 68 page report (Page 69 is left blank for the reader’s ‘notes’) would lead you to think it is a highly scientific, thoroughly researched balanced work. Twenty-five maps, a dozen tables, and sections on everything from soil to strategy – what could be more scholarly? Then you start reading.

The repetition, another propaganda technique, doesn’t even allow the reader to go two pages without using the same stock phrases again and again. Page Four’s first paragraph advises the reader how ‘vibrant and dynamic’ the ‘vision’ is. For the more forgetful reader, this is reiterated a mere six paragraphs later.

In between we are told this is not a management plan, but rather is meant to give further support to the scheme. So, we have a situation where CJ Piper, a direct financial beneficiary of the past scheme and any further work, is working with the council to prove what a great plan this is. ‘Conflict of Interest’ is the phrase that most comes to mind.

Page Five in its Sections 2.1 and 2.2 stress no less than 3 times that there are ‘community’ benefits. There is absolutely no mention to be found in this paper of the complete lack of community support for this scheme.

A section on soil later in this report, heavily padded with imagery, makes no mention of the Forestry Commission’s own soil report until the last few pages, where at last buried in a table is some acknowledgement that the previous planting failed largely due to weeds and allegedly deer browsing. If the deer which now also need to be ‘managed’ at St Fitticks were really a cause, then why are virtually all the St Fitticks tree guards in pristine shape?

Finally we come to the real actuality of what is proposed for our hill and its deer.

Page 67 lays out the one-off night vision count figures – and then lays out plans to eliminate veritably all of these animals. There will be no herd of deer by the time the trees are meant to be maturing. Here are the cull plans, previously withheld from the public for an unreasonably long period of time:

‘An [sic] SNH count using thermal imaging equipment was carried out in February 2011 which indicated the presence of 7 bucks, 10 does, 6 juveniles and 6 unclassified animals.

Two types of control will be carried out within the Plan period:

(1) A Pre-Planting Reduction in stocking of deer whereby additional inputs from ACC will be employed in the initial year of the Plan to reduce the roe deer population to a level that will not threaten establishment of the planned woodland creation programme. This is estimated to be 8 deer per 100 ha.

(2) On-going Management Control that will be carried out on (an) annual basis to maintain the roe deer population at the above level that is considered to be necessary to achieve the desired woodland and associated habitat conditions.

The Targets for the above types of management will be:-

  • 2012/13 pre planting reduction: 8 bucks, 9 does, 7 juveniles (Popn. target 5
  • 2013/14 on-going management 1 buck, 2 does, 1 juvenile (popn. target 5)
  • 2014/15 on-going management 1 buck, 2 does, 1 juvenile (popn. target 5)
  • 2015/16 on-going management 1 buck, 2 does, 1 juvenile (popn. target 5)
  • 2016/17 on-going management 1 buck, 2 does, 1 juvenile (popn. target 5)

Totals 8 bucks, 9 does, 7 juveniles for pre-planting reduction and 4 bucks, 8 does and 4 juveniles for on-going management.’

You do not have to be a scientist or a biologist to see that this programme, if carried out, will end the genetic variety and thus health, robustness and overall survival of this herd of roe deer. Any predation, death (they live 6-7 years) lack of successful breeding – and the herd will be gone.

The paper claims that 8 deer should inhabit 100 ha. That is some estimate, and if it truly reflects new deer guidelines, these need to be re-thought, questioned and changed before the apparently powerful, definitely lucrative, hunting lobby ‘manages’ our deer populations out of existence.

The culler’s name is blacked out. He or she has worked for Aberdeen City Council since 1983. They will shoot our deer with a .22 calibre rifle. They are qualified in game meat handling.

The only community building that has taken place is the unification of people and community councils against this tree scheme.

The report says deer are now (suddenly and conveniently) overpopulating Aberdeen and resulting in automobile accidents. The writer suggested over a year ago that in keeping with other parts of the UK, the City should erect some signs warning motorists deer are in the area as a precaution.

The number of deer causing accidents is as nothing compared to the number of other animals killed by motorists, the number of pedestrians hit while crossing roads, and the other forms of road carnage we see daily in our newspapers. It is a situation which an awareness campaign and signs could well help to eliminate in a fashion somewhat less barbaric than killing the animals to save them.

This ‘kill to avoid a problem’ mentality should not be allowed to drive our deer into a low population situation. The fact is nature is cruel – some animals will die; some will be predated (again, foxes do get young deer). Yet somehow, despite lack of government intervention and Mr Tallboy’s rifle, they have managed to exist in this area for decades. Until now.

The hunter from all accounts would have to be Ranger Tallboys. The question is opened, is this man serving the environment or his paymasters? There was not a hint of objection when the city granted planning permission for a football stadium to be build at Loirston Loch, in the heart of a SAC area home to protected species.

Now Ranger Tallboys is adamant that the deer must be shot, despite costly failure of the first phase of trees to grow and the clear evidence the second phase will likewise fail. His silence over the gorse removal and its impact on various species including birds such as the Yellowhammer, was deafening.

It may well have been Tallboys who referred to deer to a passer-by on the hill as ‘rabbits with long legs’. We may have rabbit population issues. Rabbits and roe deer do not have the same breeding and population issues. This attitude might be amusing, except for its complete lack of understanding of the community’s wishes.

The paper refers again and again to community building. The only community building that has taken place is the unification of people and community councils against this tree scheme.

I could go into further detail about this paper; its arcane drawings showing how 89,000 trees will not change the vistas from or of the archaeological remains on Tullos and so on. It is a cut and paste job which raises many questions (not least of which is who exactly paid for it, and why it is allowed to misrepresent the public feeling on this matter).

I will post a link to it on one of my websites shortly, omitting the illustrations which have turned it into a vast, repetitive document.

Trees

The trees at St Fitticks (where there are any traces of trees at all in the intact tubes) were either choked with weeds or are stunted (no doubt due to the poor soil and proximity to the North Sea, its winds and its salt air.

The area as shown in my recent photo-essay is wholly neglected. If there are people in Aberdeen City who were meant to maintain the trees and keep the weeds down, then they have done a very poor job indeed. Hardly any at all of the tree guards at St Fitticks are damaged. The area is strewn with litter as well, and vandalism certainly accounted for some of the damage.

The gorse was cleared in massive sections from Tullos; perhaps it is just as well deer have been shot, for they are without the shelter they previously would have had.

FoUTG Chair Addesses Council Re. Referendum Report

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Apr 062012
 

A report on the UTG referendum was discussed at a meeting of full council on Wednesday with a view to it being approved before being sent to the Scottish Government. Friends of Union Terrace Gardens chairman Mike Shepherd was permitted to give a deputation. Aberden voice presents Mike’s deputation in full.

Town House1
“I was allowed to give a deputation here in January when I said that the FoUTG would agree to take part in a referendum if it was fair.

We agreed to the referendum in spite of the shameful behaviour of this council in ignoring the result of the public consultation two years ago. We agreed for two reasons.

First, we saw the CGP as a juggernaut pushed through relentlessly by business and a friendly council. There were only two options to stop this; either through the referendum or legal action. We chose the referendum.

Secondly, we chose this route through public spirit. We were only too aware of the poisonous attitudes building on both sides of the issue. Aberdeen was at war with itself. A fair referendum was the only way of killing this beast.

I also told the council that the referendum would have to be fair because implicit in taking part was that we accepted the final result, whatever it was. This was said in good faith.

THIS WAS NOT A FAIR REFERENDUM!

We do not accept the result. The process was flawed. Internet and phone voting should not have been allowed as without signatures, this was open to fraud. The Green party have also asked me to complain about their shortened message in the information pack that was sent out.

The City Garden Project supporters were allowed to spend tens of thousands of pounds on PR, newspapers, leaflets and radio ads. This money spent on advertising bought a marginal result for the referendum.

The ads were often misleading and in some instances blatantly so. We were told of a bogus £182M investment, consisting of a bogus £15M of private investment and a bogus £20M Art Gallery grant which didn’t exist. One misleading ad is under investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority.

This council also misled the public. The claim that a new park could create 6,500 jobs was utterly ludicrous. They did not explain the risks of borrowing through TIF properly, even when Audit Scotland expressed their concerns about the long term implications for the Council’s finances.

You are £618M in debt, you cannot afford the risk on further borrowing.

The council were partial to one side of the referendum. The ACGT were allowed to show a video in the Art Gallery, council property, yet we were excluded until after several days of complaint on the matter.

This was a dishonest referendum. The public were misled right up the City Garden path. The council should vote to ignore the result. Furthermore, this report should not be passed onto the Scottish Government as suggested. The proposal to spend valuable investment and infrastructure money on something as trivial as a new park is a disgrace.

We do not accept the result of the referendum and we intend to carry on campaigning to save Union Terrace Gardens. Thank you.”

Evening Express report here.  http://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/Article.aspx

Tullos Hill Deer Cull – A Resident’s View

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

With no sign of regret or compromise, let alone acknowledgement of a huge problem, Aberdeen City is literally ploughing ahead with its unpopular tree planting on the rocky soil of Tullos Hill, which sits on the North Sea. This tree planting as we now know involves a deer cull – which as documents show was deliberately withheld from the consultation. Local resident Alan Robertson gives his point of view.

deer-tall2-pic
Anyone who has watched the Tullos Hill deer cull debate unfold over the last eighteen months cannot help but be astonished by how this has been conducted by Officials and Councillors at Aberdeen City Council.

In the latest twist to this sorry tale, the Council have started the deliberate destruction of areas of the deer’s natural habitat by removing large quantities of gorse from the Tullos Hill area.

These are areas where the deer used to shelter and graze. Along with the gorse in these areas, the plants and grasses that the deer eat have also been cleared.

The Tullos Hill meadowland has been ruined by the Council actions and the biodiversity of plant life and creatures who depended on it destroyed.

The Council released the following statement to the Media a few days ago:

“The roe deer population on Tullos Hill is currently much higher than the land can support. There is very little variety of vegetation growing and deer suffer as a result.”

Yes, the deer will ‘suffer as a result’ of the deliberate destruction of their habitat by the Council who have removed the gorse where the deer shelter. The clearance of these areas by the Council has ensured that there ‘is very little variety of vegetation growing’. As far as overpopulation goes, I walk across Tullos Hill regularly, and I have not seen any deer there for many weeks and suspect that most of the deer have migrated to Kincorth Hill or other areas nearby because their habitat on Tullos Hill has been destroyed by the Council.

There was no mention of the Council’s intention to cull the deer when the public consultation was released and now they have resorted to destroying the deer’s habitat to eradicate the deer from the area. In addition, the Council say that the culling of the deer will still go ahead. The result of Council action is that the deer are being attacked on two fronts; first by the destruction of their habitat and then by culling.

  the Council should be aware that Tullos Hill isn’t suitable for their tree planting scheme.

It is obvious to anyone who has followed the Council’s plans for Tullos Hill unfold via their Committee Reports, Media releases also and from emails I have received from Officials at the Council, that they are prepared to do and say anything to continue with their ridiculous tree planting scheme on Tullos Hill.

The Council proposal that Tullos Hill will become a commercially viable forest is unrealistic. The soil at Tullos Hill is unsuitable for tree planting let alone being capable of sustaining a large forested area.

In addition, consider this: have you ever seen a forested area on a North East Scotland coastline? There are very good reasons for this and the Council should be aware that Tullos Hill isn’t suitable for their tree planting scheme.

Aberdeen City Council is determined to go ahead with the tree planting scheme despite the obvious inherent disadvantages of the Tullos Hill environment. They have recently erected three perimeter fences to ensure that deer and rabbits are kept out of the main areas where trees will be planted. The combination of gorse removal and these wide ranging fenced off areas leaves the few remaining local deer on Tullos Hill with far less of their natural habitat available.

To proceed to cull the few remaining deer on the hill would be barbaric considering what the animals have already been put through by Aberdeen City Council in the last few months.

I urge local people to speak out against the proposed deer cull and contact their local Councillors regarding this issue.

02.03.12 – A Black Day For Aberdeen

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, History, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Mar 092012
 

The black calendar of Aberdeen’s civic history has a new entry: 2nd March 2012, the day that its citizens, evident sufferers of apathy and myopia, handed both its natural heritage and its economic future to a cabal of businessmen.  Arthur Taylor writes.

utg2011pic

The fight to retain and improve Union Terrace Gardens hit the buffers on that day when the public – or rather 27.5% of them – voted to support the plans to destroy this unique piece of the city’s heritage and replace it with a concrete monstrosity – presumably confused by the smoke and mirrors of the PR campaign which branded it “The Granite Web”.

Whether the battle turns into a war, protracting the debate, and driving further wedges between parties already badly divided, remains to be seen, but it is hard to see a rapid healing of the wounds that this process has created.

It is also difficult to stop the passion that fuelled the Retain campaign from dissipating, before all avenues of challenge are exhausted against a process labelled as democratic – but which in reality has been anything but that.

What is clear is that events from 2008 to now should be reviewed and recorded for posterity, so that future generations when looking back can seek to understand a number of things:

  • why we allowed our heritage to be given away to a clique of egoists and nepotists, who deluded the public and maybe even themselves into believing that they were altruists and philanthropists
  • why the local authority whose primary function is to act in the citizenry’s best interest handed control to an unelected quango, immune from public scrutiny
  • and why we allowed the city’s future to be mortgaged on the most questionable of business cases, flagged up as high risk by Audit Scotland in the final days of the campaign – when most votes were already cast.

Not that this was a revelation: Friends of Union Terrace Gardens had identified the risk months before, but their claims were played down in the media.

The last two months have seen a referendum conducted by a returning officer who sought to have the campaigns run to a fair set of rules.

The dominance of the local print media in forming and steering public opinion, and its incestuous relationship with local business, is deeply concerning.

While it appears that the retain groups stayed within their £8000 budgets, the pro groups – aided and abetted by the collaborators in the local media – spent an estimated £1,000,000 to buy the votes of the people of Aberdeen. Their cynical campaign saw radio adverts dressed as public information broadcasts, and a drip-fed daily editorial in the local press, with each day’s evening paper offering more extravagant promises than the last, as part of a fawning hysterical clamour.

That the retain groups, variously composed primarily of grey-haired men, beardies, tree-huggers and an enthusiastic schoolboy, ran the referendum right to the wire, losing by such a slender margin, is testament to their energy, enthusiasm and resourcefulness. That they did this against a campaign co-ordinated by the BIG Partnership, Scotland’s largest PR agency, is little short of a miracle.

The dominance of the local print media in forming and steering public opinion, and its incestuous relationship with local business, is deeply concerning.

The public need a source of true facts rather than propaganda dressed as objective reporting.

That said, there have been two positives to emerge from the press coverage of the campaign: the amusement derived from watching the Evening Express contorting itself like an India-rubber prostitute in a bid to champion the development, while not entirely abandoning its habitual council-baiting; and the emergence of the STV Local site as a place where all parties can present their voice without editorial bias.

It is hard not to see the future of local journalism as lying in hyper-local online spaces, as counterpoint to the shrinking of print to the point of complete insignificance.

the dead-eyed, gape-mouthed novelty-seekers who lurch zombie-like through the malls

Returning to the proposed development itself, it should be remembered that Union Terrace Gardens is the only part of the city where one can see the original topography of the land on which the city is built.

Sadly the local authority in the last century has allowed almost all traces of the city’s history to be erased like some embarrassing legacy instead of retaining and celebrating its character. Compare this with Edinburgh’s old town or York’s centre.

We are now confronted by the effacement of the final part of our history in order to satisfy the dead-eyed, gape-mouthed novelty-seekers who lurch zombie-like through the malls that have brought about the systematic homogenisation of the city centre and obliterated all individuality and character.

If we do not continue to challenge this proposed act of civic vandalism, by:

  • opposing the planning application,
  • challenging the use of Common Good land,
  • exposing the business case as one which will leave the city bankrupt (as it was last in1817)  when the TIF scheme plays out as feared,

then we should at least ensure that we record for posterity the names of the businessmen who proposed this vanity project; note the politicians and faceless unelected quango-ists who eased its path to realisation; and ponder the many, many idiotic consumers who swallowed the hype, without challenge or analysis.

If we do nothing else, we should record those names on the black calendar’s page for 2nd March 2012.

The Great City Gardens Project Gravy Train

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Feb 282012
 

A person might think that a chamber of commerce exists to promote local businesses.  Here in Aberdeen this is true as well.  But as Aberdeen Voice’s Suzanne Kelly learns – the taxpayer is funding at least some of the PR work  for the City Gardens  Project – and the Chamber of Commerce and ACSEF seem to be leading the City Council by the nose.

<digimax/>
The proposed City Gardens Project/Granite Web is a contentious idea which would see a mix of public and private interests building huge, granite ramps over Union Terrace Gardens.
While this idea may not even get off the ground, it has been a gold mine for some fortunate businesses via the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce – at the taxpayer’s expense.

This article will primarily deal with money that the City Council was invoiced by the Chamber of Commerce for PR-related work.  Before doing so, a little recap of other financial facts will add perspective.

PriceWaterhouse Coopers have come up with some grandiose projections including the creation of some 6,500 permanent jobs and £122 million flowing into Aberdeen every year until c. 2023:  all because of the granite web.  PriceWaterhouse Coopers were first paid £41,000 and change for TIF-related work in March 2010.  Other invoices followed, and so far I have been shown by Scottish Enterprise £71,000 worth of PwC invoices.

These invoices are made out to Scottish Enterprise, and Scottish Enterprise is funded by the taxpayer.  Unfortunately, these projections have been seized upon  by the press and turned into ‘facts’  (The Press & Journal published these and other items in a box entitled ‘facts and figures’ on 19 January next to an article about the PwC projections and the garden’s many projected benefits).

The unelected and free-spending and secretive ‘Vote for the City Gardens Project Group’ have likewise promoted these figures in their literature as being reliable facts as well.  They are projections, and arguably very optimistic ones at that.  Whether or not these glowing projections (that we will have more permanent jobs from our web than London expects from its 2012 Olympics) are based on the fact that PwC is being paid by the side that wants to build the web is something the referendum voters may wish to ponder.

A Freedom of Information request I lodged with Scottish Enterprise some time ago revealed (details of which I have previously published) included:-

Item Description Date Amount
1 Technical Feasibility Study to undertake an engineering, cost and design appraisal of the development options for UTG, each incorporating an arts centre. Jun 2009 £162k
2 Architect, Design & Project management fees for a Contemporary Arts Centre project Feb 09/May 10 £226k
3 Consultation Report – City Square Project.. Mar 2010 £113,915
4 Union Terrace Gardens (TIF)-Tax Increment Financing Mar 10
Oct 10
Nov 10		 £71,959.65
5 Scottish Enterprise holds 22 copies of invoices relating to ACSEF approved spend for activities relating to stakeholder engagement, events management, and communcations. [sic] 2009-10
2010-11		 £51,766.60
£22,712.72

(source – Scottish Enterprise email exchange with Suzanne Kelly May 2011)

While this £648,000 was being spent, Aberdeen City Council was battling with potential job and service cuts in order to balance its books.  It seems that these costs have largely been paid by the taxpayer via Scottish Enterprise and other vehicles, and I can find nothing to show that the Wood Family Trust, which has offered £50,000,000 to further the project, has paid towards any of these costs.  The PR and promotional invoices referred to at Item 5 have been paid by the Aberdeen City taxpayer.

Before moving on to Item 5, which is the subject of this article, some of these other items are worth a further glance.

At Item 2 you will notice we are now talking about some kind of ‘Contemporary Arts Centre project’ – is Peacock already being edged out of the picture at this point?

Item 4 would seem to correspond to PriceWaterhouse Coopers invoices which I referred to.  How much more money has been spent on PWC since this May 2011 exchange is unknown.

From what I have been subsequently sent by Scottish Enterprise, the bulk of the invoices at Item 5 were from the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce to the City Council.  In the words of Scottish Enterprise:-

  • 9 invoices relate to financial year 2009/10 – these total £51,766.60
  • 16 invoices relate to financial year 2010/11 – these total £36,692.95. This total is higher than the original figure stated due to the invoices received after the date of that response
  • There has been no spend on the City Garden Project from the ACSEF budget during the current financial year  (SK notes – it is only February – there is time)

(source – Scottish Enterprise email to Suzanne Kelly February 2012)

Arguably a mere £88,459 is small change as Aberdeen City contemplates borrowing £92,000,000 (minimum) if the project goes ahead. However, this is money which the City paid from its own budgets – it is taxpayer money.  Should a financially-pressured city use pubic money for propaganda purposes – PR, events and photos designed to promote the City Garden Project?  Is the Wood Family Trust contributing any money towards these expenses yet?  I simply do not know.

A spreadsheet of the expenses comprising Item 5 can be found online at http://oldsusannahsjournal.yolasite.com/  I would recommend looking at these 50 or so items.

If you look at the wording in the table above, ACSEF is apparently approving this expenditure.  ACSEF is a public-private quango, and at the time of writing, Stewart Milne is on its board.  He owns the Triple Kirks land adjacent to Union Terrace Gardens, and he wants to turn this landmark into an office complex which will likely enrich him if it goes ahead in my opinion.

Despite several emails, no one in a position of power has the slightest qualm with Mr Milne potentially having a conflict of interest.    Why precisely ACSEF is allowed to commission and recommend for payment invoices to the City Council is a matter I personally find worrying.

Virtually none of the invoices from the Chamber to the City specify who / what company actually performed the services in question.  What company got all the PR work?  Who took the photos?  I do note that Zoe Corsi of the BIG Partnership is on the Chamber’s Board of Directors – as are other key players such as Tom Smith, one of the two directors of the private entity, Aberdeen City Gardens Trust.  This company seems to be in the thick of the decision-making processes; it is apparently the company which is holding onto the results of the design finalist public vote – which it refuses to release at present.

The taxpayer apparently paid for that exhibition and the public vote – and yet a private company seems to be withholding the results.  The argument has been put forth that it is no longer relevant.  Many people took the opportunity to write on the voting papers that they were against all the schemes and wanted the gardens retained and improved.

The public should have had this ‘no’ option at the final selection vote, but it seems councillors who asked for a ‘no’ option were outmoded by the Project Management Board (note – see the website listed previously for details of how all these companies and entities have interesting personnel overlaps).

It may be of interest to accountants that the party which actually performed the work not specified on these invoices, and with only a rare exception is VAT ever charged.  It would be interesting to know whether or not the Chamber of Commerce adds any fees or commission charges to the work it is invoicing the City for.

Highlights of the list of invoices include:-

  • £180 paid for a photograph showing ‘inaccessibility of Union Terrace Gardens’
  • over  £25,000 paid for ‘Stakeholder engagement’ events and so on since October 2009 to August 2010
  • £3500 paid to ‘Comedia’ for Charles Landry to attend event / speak
  • Redacted line items and handwritten notes adorn several of the invoices
  • One invoice – No. 42407 shows only one line relating to ‘coach hire’ – this is £246.  However, the total shown on this one page invoice is for £7444 – what has happened?
  • A January 2010 Advertising bill from Aberdeen Press & Journals for £ 2,820 ( See: http://fraserdenholm.blogspot)
  • £11,000 in February 2010 charged from the Chamber to the City for “Development of images, movie, powerpoint and exhibition material for City Square Project as per attached sheets”

As to the redacted text on the invoices, redacted text has started showing up in Project Monitoring  Board minutes and reports again, despite Councillor McCaig’s previous intervention to cease this practice.  One company which has had its name redacted from recent documentation is Brodies.

The value of three Brodies invoices which I received copies of is around £12,000.  One of these invoices from April 2011 is for:

“City Gardens Project – Development Constraints Report (Legal  [sic] To fee for professional services in connection with the preparation of a development constraints report relating to the title of Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen, and surrounding land.”

I suppose our City’s in-house legal department cannot be expected to know whether or not it has free title to Union Terrace Gardens.   Happily, experts have demonstrated the land is Common Good Land.  As such, whether any of these garden projects can or should be legitimately carried out will be a big question in the future.

Earlier we saw how ACSEF was allowed to recommend these expenditures; we have seen how the Chamber of Commerce invoices the City for ACSEF-approved costs.  If we were to put in some of the over-lapping names from ACSEF and the Chamber of Commerce into the equation, we would be able to see that:

ACSEF [including Stewart Milne, Jennifer Craw (of Wood Family Trust), Tom Smith (Director, Aberdeen City Gardens Trust), Colin Crosby (Director, Aberdeen City Gardens Trust), Callum McCaig (ACC) ]

approved invoices generated by the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce [Colin Crosby; Zoe Corsi (BIG Partnership) , former director Tom Smith]

for the City Council [Callum McCaig]

to approve to further the aims of the Garden Project (CGP entity members include John Michie, Colin Crosby, Jennifer Craw).

Given the above, I suggest that the time is right for an entire re-think of how this project has been allowed to develop, and a full investigation into the demise of the Peacock plan and an investigation into the genesis of the current state of affairs might not be a bad idea as well.

While this is going on, a local care home has announced it will no longer provide 24/7 on-site staff as there is not enough money.  Residents were told to drink less fluids at night time.

Tree for Every Citizen Scheme: Not So Cost Neutral After All

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Breaking, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, News, Opinion  No Responses »
Jan 072012
 

Aberdeen’s contentious Tullos Hill  deer cull / tree-planting scheme takes a particularly strong blow as a Freedom of Information request shows that the financial picture is not as ‘cost-neutral’ as its (few) supporters would have us think.  Suzanne Kelly examines the newly-released figures for Phase 1 of the planting and questions the logic of proceeding with Phase 2.

deer5pic
Aileen Malone, Aberdeen City Councillor and Convener of the Housing & Environment Committee has been silent on the subject of her pet project and Liberal Democrat election manifesto pledge lately; she’s not answered emails on the subject, nor has she appeared in the media to defend the scheme.
The Liberal Democrat party headquarters likewise have not replied to any emails on the matter of the deer cull to date.

Malone is the de facto figurehead for the plan to cull the roe deer (which have happily lived in the area for decades without the need for a cull) in order to plant a staggering 89,000 trees on Tullos Hill. 

When full details broke as to what this Phase 2 planting entails emerged, individuals, community councils and animal welfare charities expressed dismay and disbelief.

One of the main arguments offered by its proponents is that planting the trees and shooting the deer is ‘cost-neutral’, or in the words of Councillor Neil Fletcher in an email concerning the cull:-

“… this project is at practically no cost to the tax-payer”.

But is the scheme as cost-neutral as its City Council proponents claim?  The answer is most definitely NO.

The attached spread sheet excerpt was obtained in mid-December following months of requests  (note that a line has been added to show a refund the City had to make – this was somehow omitted).  Aileen Malone wrote in early October to advise an officer would get back on the matter shortly.   When no information was forthcoming , a Freedom of Information request was lodged (and answered slightly later than was meant to be the deadline).

The City’s (incomplete) spread sheet

The spread sheet from the city shows incoming money as negative and outgoings as positive figures.

There is an outgoing sum of £3,000 at Line 18 with no explanatory text.  There is likewise a line for £142 – this may relate to an advertising supplement extolling the virtues of the scheme, but this is not certain.  The city also forgot to take off the £43,800 it had to return for the failure of phase 1 on Tullos.  Combining all of the figures together, I get an indication that Aberdeen may be £20,600 in the red at this point – and yet may look to go ahead with a bigger plantation.

See: Tree-for-every-citizen-finances/

Dames Violets At Tullos. Will They Be History If The Trees Are Planted?
Looking at the list of money going in and out of the account, it seems that the scheme was not the simple, cheap, well thought-out plan promised.   When the finances are considered in conjunction with a soil report issued by the Forestry Commission, it is possible to conclude the plan is deeply flawed and expensive.

The the soil report indicates that Tullos Hill’s soil quality  means the trees would be subject to ‘wind throw.’  This means that winds (such as the extremely strong winds frequently experienced this winter) will more than likely topple trees growing on the hill.

The report also points to the possibility that trees simply will not thrive on Tullos for a variety of reasons– but what is the financial impact of failure?

The costly Phase 1 failure- £43,800 in grant money repaid

The City was forced to repay £43,800 of grant money (after months of being chased for payment, it should be noted) to the Forestry Commission.  Presumably this money was generated from the taxpayer in the first place – therefore the taxpayer may well have wound up paying both for the trees to be planted as well as for their failure to thrive.

While the City has chosen largely to put the blame for the failure on some 29 roe deer in Loirston County Park, the failure belongs  in no small part to those who selected the site, who decided to buy smaller tree guards than had been recommended, who ignored the historic wind, weather and soil data, and who did little about weeds.  Perhaps an investigation is called for into the selection of Tullos in the first place, and into any possible negligence on the part of those involved.

Will Aberdeen be taking another grant from the Forestry Commission – which arguably we were led to believe was already arranged?

If so – why?  What are the implications of a failure of 89,000 trees financially speaking?  Unfortunately, according to the Freedom of Information response, thereares as yet no financial plans, budgets or projections available.

Considering the proponents originally gave a deadline of May 2011 for private individuals to stump up £225,000 to save the deer (a figure which exceeds the £200,000 Phase 1 grant!), it is highly worrying that projections for the future phase 2 scheme cannot be supplied as ‘the information is not held’.  Had the scheme’s supporters come clean in these respects months ago, this scheme may not have gone so far down the road as it has been allowed to.

Paying for Experts

Animal charities offered the services of other forestry experts to the City free of charge with a view to finding a way to plant trees without killing the deer – something which is quite possible to do.  Deer will apparently be culled for several years (there are thought to be 29 deer in the area which roam from site to site; these creatures usually live 6-7 years, and in some instances are fed by local people).

The city denigrated the experts, and advised it already has an expert.

Tullos Hill. Beautiful Without A Forest
The identity of the City’s expert has never been made known.  At one stage it was suggested that they were being paid for their services in connection with ‘A Tree for Every Citizen.’

Looking at the companies listed on the spread sheet involved and the people who serve on these companies, a number of forestry experts seem to be involved as paid consultants. As such, these people might be seen to have a vested interest in a Phase 2 planting going ahead; it would be human nature to protect one’s source of income.

One of the people whose names crops up in a list of company directors has many directorships to their credit – including charcoal and sawmill director/company officer roles.  Some of the twenty or so companies on this person’s list of directorships have been dissolved, including a boomerang company or two.

Further research into the companies and individuals mentioned on the Council’s spread sheet is under way.

Aberdeen officials have issued conflicting statements on the nature of the forest to be created – some say it will bring in revenue which will help pay for the scheme; others say no such plans are in place.  If a sawmill plant, lumber jacking or charcoal works  (and these types of business interests are reflected in the company activities of people involved with the scheme per the spread sheet) are envisaged for Tullos, then the public should be told.

If one or more persons with vested interests in making profit from lumber are refusing the advice / peer review from animal welfare experts with forestry experience, then the entire scheme should be examined in a public, transparent forum and reviewed by a number of recognised experts.

Surely an impartial, scientific professional would normally welcome experienced, free advice even if they chose not to heed it.  The claims of expert advice seem hollow when in one document tree guards are discarded as deer control devices because they have ‘visual impact.’

Can complete impartiality of someone who may stand to gain from the Phase 2 planting going ahead be guaranteed?  How can there be an objection to wider scrutiny?

Sponsors and ‘Educational’ use of children to plant trees:  I wouldn’t count on it

Companies which donated to the first phase of the ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme are understandably reluctant to use their budgets for controversial Phase 2.

weed protection of some sort will be required which may impact other wildlife, and yet the wind may make it all in vain.

Two major companies have indicated that they will not sponsor this next phase.  Will any business want to put their brand’s value at risk by association with an unpopular scheme and deer cull?  It is highly unlikely, but some in the council seem to think sponsors will be found.  Again, there seems to be nothing budgeted, just nebulous talk of seeking business sponsors.

Schoolchildren are being relied on to make the plan look more affordable; they will be asked to help plant the trees on Tullos.

It seems doubtful that local parents will willingly give consent; thousands have signed a petition against the scheme, and over three thousand people are on a Facebook group opposing the scheme.  Clearly if the scheme will have to pay for planting all 89,000 trees when it had hoped to use children in part, then the scheme becomes even less financially sound.

The educational benefits of planting saplings should also be delivered alongside the fact a cull is being implemented not for animal welfare reasons (the Scottish SPCA condemns this particular scheme) as it is (allegedly) the cheapest way to protect the trees,  that weed protection of some sort will be required which may impact other wildlife, and yet the wind may make it all in vain.

Other costs; environmental costs

Weeds were largely to blame according to a Forestry report for the Phase 1 failure.

The Aberdeen taxpayer will be paying for several years of ‘weed control’ for Phase 2 – this may mean spraying pesticides which will damage other plants, insects, birds and other wildlife.  Using pesticides in an area near factories, homes and schools will also lead to further citizen protests.   Aberdeen paid £7,125 for Bryan Massie specifically for weed control in Phase 1 (as well as another £22,800). If the weed control was inadequate then, then how much more will we spend annually?

It is important to remember that Tullos already has its own wildlife and is a thriving ecosystem in its own right.   Gorse clearance is also recommended, although many environmentalists state that gorse is a food and habitat haven for much wildlife.  How much money will the taxpayer spend ripping up gorse?

The winners

According to the City’s information, the following companies have made money on the scheme:

CJ Piper & Co                     £42,000

Bryan Massie                     £30,000

Dulnain Bridge                   £77,800

Scottish Woodlands        £11,700

TM Forestry                       £44,400

(unspecified)                     £  3,000

TOTAL:                                                                  £208,900

(Note – while over the months there have been different figures mentioned and unofficially given, it is assumed that the most accurate set of figures is the one supplied by the Freedom of Information request received mid December which is used in this article).

The future:  No tangible financial projections – and no funding application lodged

The Freedom of Information request seems to be admitting that no budget for the future phase is held by the City.

An earlier FOI request shows that despite everything the proponents have said and done, there is as yet no formalised application lodged for a second phase.  This means that for nearly a year the claims of proponents such as Malone that the scheme was going to go ahead and was going to be cost neutral were inaccurate.  It is possible that some of the members of the Housing Committee voted in favour of this plan based on its being cost neutral; if so, the matter should be examined by that Committee and the relevant Audit Committee.

It is safe to assume that not every single grant application gets approved.  We seem to have a situation for  Phase 2 where there was no final, formal application for funds lodged, no approved funding in place, and no budget in place.

When the £43,800 repayment is subtracted from the accounts it certainly looks as if some £22,000 more than was granted was spent on Phase 1, leaving a budget deficit for Phase 2 before it even starts.

In the absence of information to the contrary the evidence speaks for itself.

Conclusion

Parents of school-age children might wish to check with their schools as to any planting plans involving their children.

Voters might want to ask their City Councillors how they stand on the issue now, and if they were in a position to vote on the matter in May 2011, did they then believe the scheme was cost-neutral.  Private sector companies might wish to think twice before entering any sponsorship/funding deals for Phase 2 as well – it does not look like a public relations win any longer.

The whole point of the cull was to make the tree planting possible, yet some council officers and elected officials want to backtrack on that point now. They now claim it is for animal welfare reasons and not the trees. However, the entire unfolding history of the City’s claims are a matter of record.

What may have started out as a great-sounding greenwash election plank has irrevocably turned into an unpopular, controversial, seemingly disorganised non-starter.  It is time to leave Tullos alone for now – or to consider enhancing its status as meadowland.  Anything else just does not add up.

Tullos Hill Report Issued By Meadow Campaigner

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Information, Opinion  No Responses »
Dec 152011
 

Aberdeen City’s ‘Tree for Every Citizen’ scheme, the proposed deer cull, and the case for meadowland preservation are examined in an extensive report issued by campaigner Suzanne Kelly.

Tullos Hill. Beautiful Without A Forest
This report examines a controversial plan by Aberdeen City Council to attempt a second plantation of 89,000 trees on Tullos Hill.

The first attempt largely failed due to poor soil, weeds, and other factors, including arson, weather, and deer browsing – according to a Forestry soil report.  This first attempt cost the City £43,800.

The issues of how the City launched its public consultation (which omitted a 2-3 year weed control requirement and a deer cull) and how it has since responded to its Community Councils and citizens forms a large portion of this report.  The report also focuses on the benefits of keeping  the hill as it is – a grassland/meadowland, enjoyed by both people and a wide variety of wildlife.

The report and related documents can be found at  http://suzannekelly.yolasite.com/ 

The City has previously stated that this scheme is ‘cost neutral’ – but as emerged last month, there is actually no funding in place, as only a draft application has to date been submitted.  Proponent of the initial scheme, Cllr Aileen Malone, has left recent emails on the subject of the financing unanswered.

Meadows throughout the UK are being lost to development at an alarming rate.  In the same area as Tullos Hill, a football stadium is set to be built in an Special Area of Conservation (SAC), with 2 species of EU protected animals known to be present.  Also nearby, a housing development also spells loss of green space.  With wildlife losing breeding and feeding grounds in this area of the city, campaigners including Kelly and Councillor Neil Cooney are calling for a re-think to the tree scheme.

A Soil Report from the Government indicates that a planting on Tullos Hill will not be successful.

Petitions collected thousands of signatures against the cull, and four Community Councils objected to the scheme and the cull. A Facebook community on this issue has some 3,000 members.  A new petition to preserve or enhance Tullos Hill has over 400 signatories, and can be found at http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/tullos-hill-meadowlands-deer-park.html

Animal organisations, including the Scottish SPCA, condemn the proposed deer cull, which was announced in March.  Documents demonstrate that the cull was planned specifically for the tree planting, although the City’s officials are now saying it needs to cull part of the small herd (some 29) in general – the figure of 9 deer and a cull lasting a few years have been suggested.  The deer roam across several sites.

Animal charities point out that many methods of planting trees with non-lethal measures exist, and that other deer would likely move into the area after a cull.  Many experts question the wisdom of putting so many trees on a windswept hill on the North Sea where a previous attempt failed.

Kelly said:

“Many feel the deer cull should have been mentioned in the public consultation.  The consultation mentioned rabbit fencing, so people assumed that if other animal issues existed, they would also have been brought to the public’s attention.  Because the cull and the weed control (which may mean years of spraying toxins) were not included, no one raised timely objections.”

“The handling of this affair from start to finish goes against what the people in the area want.  It goes against principles of transparent, open government,  and it goes against logic.  There is a report that says it is unlikely the trees will grow – why are we throwing good money after bad?  Tullos Hill is a beautiful meadow with abundant wildlife, and its wildflowers attract visitors.  When we are losing this type of habitat to development nearby, why should we try to turn one ecosystem into another?”

There is a mailing list for anyone wishing updates on this situation; contact tullosdeer@yahoo.com

DISCREDITED: Tree For Every Citizen And Its Backers

 Aberdeen City, Articles, Community, Environment, Featured, Opinion  No Responses »
Nov 042011
 

An Editorial and suggestion for a better plan for Tullos Hill. By Suzanne Kelly.

deer-tall2-pic
For nearly a year many people have attempted to get Aberdeen City Council to see sense over its planned cull of the Tullos Hill roe deer.  The City insists the archaeology-rich, bio diverse meadows of Tullos must be turned into an 89,000 tree forest.  They will not budge.

It makes no difference that the area has a history of arson and that there are explosion hazard sites on the hill (there is a dangerous old waste tip and escaping gas areas, protected by warning signs and barbed wire fence).
Aileen Malone (Liberal Democrat Councillor), Valerie Watts (Chief Executive), Pete Leonard (Officer) and Ian Tallboys (ranger) have all been corresponding with me and others.  These emails often contradict other correspondence.

They also often quote an unnamed expert or two, and the writers refuse to so much as listen to any dissenting expert opinions, even if offered free of charge.  This puts to rest any feeble excuse that there is a robust scientific approach to the hill’s future.

For me, there are just too many contradictions, omissions and flawed logic for the plan and its supporters to retain any credibility on this matter.  It is time to examine some of the conflicting information these four people have been offering.  It is also time to examine whether or not everything they say is accurate, and to ask why we have spent council time, money and energy on this plan.

For what we were once told was a ‘cost-neutral.’ sound plan ready to implement turns out to be nothing more than a draft proposal to the Forestry Commission.   But more importantly it is time to secure Tullos Hill’s future and preserve what we already have:  a beautiful, changing meadowland and grassland habitat which supports animals including deer.

Who has said and done what?  To completely detail all of the misinformation and seemingly misleading statements would require a book.  Instead I prepared a chart which highlights some of the contradictions.  It can be accessed here, but is in no way exhaustive of the ever-changing information slowly leaking out concerning this scheme. Click Link

Past articles have highlighted that £43,800 was already wasted on a failed tree planting at Tullos.  Even though I formally asked the City to clarify this had happened, Valerie Watts at first effectively denied any such thing had occurred.  When presented with proof positive (in the form of a letter from the Forestry Commisison demanding the £43,800) Ms Watts said that ‘there was no relation’ between my request to clarify that money was owed – and that since I asked my question in May and the bill was paid in March, there was no need to clarify the position.  The public and I beg to differ.

New Revelations

The Evening Express (itself accused by Valerie Watts alongside the P&J of getting the story wrong over time) revealed that there is actually no budget in place.  All this time Aileen Malone and others have insisted the scheme is cost neutral and that we must shoot the deer as it would be the most cost effective way to grow trees.

Never mind that the scheme will destroy what is already on the hill or that this argument is wholly immoral – which led to the public outcry – there is no money in place.  This one revelation alone calls into question reports issued by the City which claim the scheme had funding.  It does not.

Asking the City to clarify the funding picture has so far been fruitless, but I have since learned that only a draft application for the tree scheme is in place.  All the press releases and sweeping statements about the trees are, just a little bit, premature.  Months ago I asked Ms Watts for the financials.  She eventually wrote back to ask what I meant – which in case you were wondering meant the financials for the tree plan (money in, money out, costs, expenses).

Rather than answering me, she has sent my question (months after first being asked) to her Freedom of Information department.   The Council recently complained that its FOI staff were inundated with work:  perhaps those who hold information should release it without the need to burden this department.

( Stop Press – Financial information. Click Link )

licensepostcard
 Mystery of the Missing Postcards

With funds kindly raised largely by Lush (which had a cycle event – their team from Edinburgh gave up personal time and cycled to Aberdeen to highlight the deer’s plight), some dramatic, effective pre-printed postcards were produced.
They were so popular that a re-print was done, and 700 such postcards were made in all.

I have some photos of the backs of pre-printed postcards.  These were signed after a meeting of anti-cull people was held at the end of September.  A few nights later, I obtained more cards from other people, and handed a total of 63 cards protesting the cull to a security guard at the City’s Town House.  The guard told me:

“we got loads of these in this week, and even more came in the week before.”

In a recent letter to me, Ms Watts says that 35 postcards were received.

Ms Watts and the City somehow are not getting items sent through the regular post:  Torry Community Council’s letter protesting the cull never arrived, as Watts confirmed in the same letter which mentions the postcards.  I spoke to the Torry CC Secretary on 2 November, and she said ‘the letter was definitely sent, but the City didn’t receive it.’  This letter was the result of Torry’s CC voting unanimously to protest the cull and complain about how the whole affair was handled.

Perhaps I can understand the City not receiving post through the mail – something the City claimed to have posted to me never arrived, and an email they sent never showed up either (which conveniently for them put the cull protest off by weeks).  However, I most definitely dropped 63 signed postcards from different individuals at the Town House:  there is no logical excuse for the cards ‘disappearing’.

‘The Media is to blame’ (Really?)

The City’s position, according to its Chief Executive Ms Watts is as follows (from two different letters):-

“Aberdeen City Council has no control over how the media report Council meetings.  In this case the media did not accurately report on decisions of the Committee and have continued to publish inaccurate information about the project.  They have published their interpretation of the committee decisions.”

I do not personally believe that the reports I read in print or saw on television misconstrued the Committee’s decisions at the time it decided to press ahead with the cull, having read the committee reports and minutes.

In an even stronger attack on the media, last week Valerie Watts wrote to me the following, which I believe must have been based in part on the Evening Express front page article of 30 September by you, Mr Ewen:

“In terms of media coverage, Aberdeen City Council’s Media Team has on several occasions sought to correct the media’s assumption that our deer management programme would necessarily begin on or around the first day of the season for controlling the numbers of roe deer hinds.

“Both the Evening Express and the Press & Journal have reported that the roe hind seasons begins on 01 October – the season in fact commences on 21 October – and that deer management would begin on or near that date. Both newspapers were informed as to the correct date of the start of the season and were reminded that no date had in fact been set by the Council for the start of our management programme. 

“The newspapers were also informed that their stories had raised false expectations that the start of deer management was imminent.  They have been told that details will only be finalised once funding is in place and when the trees are about to be planted.”

I spoke to an Evening Express reporter on the 2nd of November about this issue; they replied

“I am in contact very often with the City’s media team, and it’s never come up.”

Perhaps the media is misleading me, as Ms Watts would have me believe, or perhaps the media team has not contacted reporters who write about the cull.  In fact, now that I have published a number of articles on the cull, I can confirm the city has never once been in touch to suggest I have any facts wrong.

Moving on:  to a Meadow

This week the Housing & Environment Committee met (2 November); Neil Cooney called the whole dubious scheme into question.  Not only did he bring up the absolute lack of funding, but he also mentioned the soil report.

To say that Tullos is not ideal for tree planting is accurate.  But the City never did publicise this additional fact:  they have been asked to spray weed killer on Tullos for two to three years until the trees are established.  There is no detail on the cost, damage potential for plants and animals, and even potential health risks for people.

Neil Cooney, many concerned residents and I are now working to get the hill preserved (or perhaps even enhanced) as a meadow.   If you have ever seen the Dame’s Violets in bloom you would wonder why anyone would disturb their balance.  The gorse (being unceremoniously ripped out on occasion – and burnt) is essential for many forms of wildlife year round, providing food and shelter.

It is this gorse Ian Tallboys says is of limited value and which he wants ripped out.  At present there are beautiful forms of delicate (probably rather rare) fungi growing – any change in soil PH balance could kill them, not to mention the damage planting would do to the underground network from which these mushrooms grow.

You probably know there are three Bronze Age Cairns on the hill; they are set off in a striking fashion.

A forest will forever obscure them and the amazing views of the city and sea.  You might not know that over a dozen other smaller sites, many bronze age, are in the planting area.  It is unclear whether the appropriate government agencies have been contacted about this aspect of the tree plan.

If you want more information on why a meadow is such a better idea for Tullos, then please read the article on meadows in this issue of Aberdeen Voice. ( Click link )

Also – remember that we are about to build hundreds of homes and a football stadium where we currently have meadows.  This will spell the end for the wildlife that depended on these fields – to also change Tullos is an environmental disaster as far as I am concerned.  Perhaps now that the City’s ranger service is expected to turn a profit (yes, they are told to generate income streams with the very odd finance system at work in our city), they hope to have timber income from the trees – which according to the aforementioned soil report, will never achieve maturity.

How much quicker, efficient and simpler it would be to conduct nature tours of what is an amazing hill.  Environmental tourism is a growing area, and we with our resources should be getting on it.

This article and the accompanying table contain my personal opinions as well as quotations from the City’s documents.  I invite you to draw your own conclusions, to ask the City and Aileen Malone (once so keen to be quoted in press releases) why a meadow is not the best future for this hill.

If you would like to help lobby for a meadow, please get in touch via the Aberdeen Voice for further information.  We can avert an environmental tragedy if we act now.  This plan is still in a very early stage – but we will come up with a plan that will support the existing flora, fauna – and especially the deer.

 Older Entries