Valley Archives - Aberdeen Voice

All Roads Lead To Alford This Sunday

Mar 302012

With thanks to Dave Macdermid.

Grampian Transport Museum’s 30th anniversary season gets underway this Sunday from 10 a.m. with some extra special attractions to mark the occasion.

Grampian Transport Museum is open daily from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. (4 p.m. in October) from Sunday until October 28th.

Curator Mike Ward explains:

“GTM is the museum of the past, present and even the future and for this season, we are looking back at the Alford Valley Railway, which operated between 1859 and 1965, with more than three hundred passengers catching the 7 a.m. train to Aberdeen every weekday in 1908.

“We are also, with the assistance of Nissan, considering the future of the car and are delighted to be offering fast charging points for electric vehicles every day while other aspects include ‘Motor Spirit’ – the story of the parallel development of the car and oil industry and Cycles Chronology.

“Among the wide selection of vehicles is the former Royal Land Rover, which was based at Balmoral, and several top quality events including the 30th Grampian Motorcycle Convention in September. And for the opening day on Sunday we have a magnum of vintage Champagne to share with our visitors.”

Admission is £9 for adults, £7 for concession one paying adult can be accompanied by up to 2 free children. Additional children £3 each and all children must be accompanied by an adult. www.gtm.org.uk

For info – Dave Macdermid – dave.macdermid@bigpartnership.co.uk ; 07805 436988

Letter To The Sane World – A UTG Overview

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

Feb 292012

Shakhaf Barak wrote to a friend highlighting the history behind the current referendum that is dividing the city. He has kindly allowed Voice to use it, almost verbatim as the deadline approaches for voting.

Dear Friend,
Here in Aberdeen there is a bitter referendum taking place, and it could go either way. Over 70,000 people have voted thus far, in a city of barely 212,000 souls, and both sides have reported each other to the police. Central to this story is a 250-year old city centre park, Union Terrace Gardens, and the billionaire oil tycoon seeking to redevelop it.

Union Terrace Gardens are similar to Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, lying in the natural amphitheatre of the Denburn valley, the Denburn being a stream which flows right through the city, underground where it borders the Gardens. Much of Aberdeen’s best architecture was clearly envisaged to overlook this area.

The Gardens are home to a cluster of 260-year old elms trees that once formed part of the Corbie Haugh, a historic wood which ran through the valley. This is among the largest concentration of healthy mature elm trees in Europe, and they are reputed to have escaped Dutch Elm Disease, not only due to their isolation, but also because the pollution of the city has afforded some sort of protection from it.

Both the park and its beautiful Victorian toilets are Grade A-listed, and all of the trees are under preservation orders. Up until as late as 2003, the Gardens formed the centrepiece of Aberdeen’s Britain In Bloom entry, and they were truly stunning, but since then expenditure has all but ceased, and the toilets have been closed for several years.

In 2008 a local arts organisation, Peacock Visual Arts (PVA) was granted planning permission for an award-winning and sympathetically-designed arts centre to be built into the hillside of the Gardens. This would have meant felling a small number of trees but none of the elms. The design was universally acclaimed and it was hoped that this scheme would help regenerate interest in the Gardens.

Enter Sir Ian Wood, one of Scotland’s richest men, and chief of Wood Group PSN. Sir Ian decided that he’d like to redevelop the Gardens by building a five-storey bunker in their place, whilst covering over the adjoining railway line and urban dual carriageway, with the entire roof of this construction forming a flat civic square at street level. It was not entirely clear what would be installed in the bunker, although speculation was rife to say the least.

He offered the council £50m towards the cost of this project, which was mooted to cost £140m. This was possibly an optimistic figure since Union Square, a similarly sized shopping mall with none of the technical difficulties or prior excavation work, cost £250m to build. The council felt this offer was too good to refuse, but the some members of the public were up in arms.

Sir Ian decided to put the proposal out to public consultation and promised to walk away should the public reject it.

The ‘consultation’ was commissioned by Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Future (ACSEF), a publicly-funded unelected QUANGO, and conducted by The BiG Partnership, Scotland’s largest PR company.

It many ways it resembled a marketing exercise. The bulk of participation was via a website, which asked several questions with a somewhat loaded feel to them. For technical reasons, the question on whether or not to proceed with the plan defaulted to a YES vote.

If, during completion of the questionnaire, any previously-given responses were subsequently amended, this again defaulted back to a YES vote. When the results were released, it became apparent from the comments sections that may people who had intended voting NO had instead been recorded as YES voters.

Over 10,000 people participated in the consultation, and In spite of it’s technical oversights, the public voted against the Civic Square proposal by 54%-46%, a healthy and significant majority. However the PR machine kicked in and somehow spun that the 202,000 people who had not participated possibly represented a silent majority in favour of this scheme.

Critics described it as a cross between Tellytubby Land and a skate park

Sir Ian decided not to walk away, and the project went to a council vote. The council voted in favour of taking the plan forward at the expense of PVA who by that time had 80% of their £20m funding in place. It has subsequently been alleged that some of the PVA funding was diverted into the new project.

The BiG Partnership now re-launched the plans under a new name, The City Garden Project (CGP). It was claimed that the outcome of the public consultation was that the public were broadly in favour of a garden as opposed to a civic square. Any implication that they were actually in favour of preserving the existing gardens was ignored.

The interested parties now felt that the best option was to redevelop the Gardens by building a five-storey bunker in their place whilst covering over the adjoining railway line and urban dual carriageway, with the entire roof of this construction forming a new garden at street level.

The whole thing had an air of déjà vu.

This time it was decided to hold an international design contest, paid for with public money. Six designs were shortlisted from hundreds of entrants. One, The Granite Web, bore a striking resemblance to Civic Square concept, albeit with less concrete and more greenery. Critics described it as a cross between Tellytubby Land and a skate park.

The local press heavily promoted the Granite Web design from the outset of the contest, leading with it on their front page and providing it with more photo coverage than the other designs. It was almost as though it had been ordained.

The public voted, and spoiled ballots aside, all indications were that The Winter Garden design proved the most popular. An independent poll confirmed this and put The Monolith in second place.

Tellingly both of these designs retained much of the topology of the existing Gardens. Word on the street was that The Granite Web was not a popular choice, but we’ll never know for sure, because a decision was taken not to release the results of the so-called public vote to the public.

It was then announced that the winner of the private-public vote would be put forward to the selection panel, along with another design. The self-appointed selection panel consisted of Sir Ian, some other influential people from the oil industry, an architectural consultant on the project payroll, and a councillor who backed the project.

The two designs discussed were the acknowledged public favourite, The Winter Garden, and you’ve guessed it, the joker in the pack, The Granite Web. When the panel announced the result, it should have come as no surprise to anyone that they had chosen The Granite Web, yet there was a shocked silence, and even those had come out in favour of the redevelopment initially appeared bemused if not downright confused.

The original Civic Square was mooted to cost £140m, with £50m coming from Sir Ian, £20m from the private sector, and the rest to be borrowed through a Tax Incremental Funding (TIF) scheme. Any over-run would be covered by the council (read local taxpayer) .

Only £5m of the private sector contribution has materialised thus far, but there has been an announcement that The Granite Web would be significantly less expensive to build than the previously-envisaged, but somewhat less complex, civic square. Sir Ian has offered to personally fund up to £35M of any cost over runs, should they occur.

The TIF proposal cheerfully bends all the guidelines of TIF funding. TIF is intended to be used to redevelop brownfield sites, with the loan being repaid over a 25 year period through increased rates recouped from any businesses setting up in the redeveloped area. The city council had already approved planning permission for two new industrial estates on the outskirts of town, under the business case for the TIF funding, these new estates become part of the TIF zone, so in The Granite Web’s case, sections of the TIF zone are located several miles away from the actual redeveloped area.

The predictions are for 6,500 jobs and £122m annual revenue to the local economy, all based on the new industrial estates, which have no obvious linkage to The Granite Web, operating at full capacity. Even if one were to accept that any new jobs could be somehow attributed to The Granite Web, the figure of 6,500 seems unlikely given that the London Olympics is only projected to create 3,500 jobs.

Either way, the setup feels a bit shaky; the truth is that these jobs and their associated revenue will accrue with or without The Granite Web.

By this time, councillors seemed to be getting edgy and unwilling to green-light the project, so they decided to hold a public referendum. Any group wishing to campaign was required to adhere to an £8,000 spending limit, and for this they were provided with 300 words of text in the voting pack.

The packs went out, but unfortunately some of the Retain lobby’s statements were mangled due to a ‘computer error’. The voting packs were closely followed by a big money public relations mail bombing campaign by The BiG Partnership promoting The Granite Web. Publicity materials went through every letter box, pro Granite Web articles dominated the press, and adverts were played around the clock on the local radio stations.

Apparently this expenditure was permitted by virtue of being funded by an ‘unregistered’, and as yet anonymous, campaign group – whatever that means! I guess it’s a bit like not having to pay tax because your parents never applied for a birth certificate, who knows? By this point, things were becoming surreal to say the least.

The referendum closes on 1 March and it’s a bitter fight that has divided the city. For example, an oil company boss has made a complaint to the police alleging mail hacking and cyber bullying. The police claim they are taking this allegation seriously. There have also been two arrests possibly related to claims of vote-rigging, but ultimately no one was charged.

The town has gone berserk and it’s civil war all over Facebook. It’s as if we’re all experiencing a really, really bad shared dream. I just dread to think what we’ll all be waking up to on Saturday morning.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign Hosts Jordan Valley Speakers

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

Feb 192012

On March 1st the Aberdeen branch of Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign will be hosting three exciting speakers at Aberdeen University: Fathe Kdirat and Itaf Njoum Karma from Jordan Valley Solidarity, and Leehee Rothschild from Boycott from Within (Israel).

Fathe and Itaf, both Palestinians, will be discussing Israel’s destruction of communities and the environment in the Jordan Valley, and the on-going illegal Israeli settlement construction that continues to drive Palestinians from their land.

The Jordan Valley makes up a large section of the West Bank, around 28% in total. It has been one of the worst affected areas of the West Bank during the Israeli occupation, which began in 1967.

The occupation saw the Jordan Valley’s population drop by 88% and was thereafter the site of Israel’s first settlements.

Since the occupation Israel has gone about taking almost complete control of the area. This map (click to follow link) published in December 2011 by the United Nations Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) shows that 15% of the Jordan Valley comprises settlements (blatantly illegal under international law[i]), 27% comprises nature reserves, often used to control natural resources such as water supply (to the detriment of Palestinians) and 56% comprises closed military areas.

In addition, 87% of the Jordan Valley is designated Area C, i.e. under Israeli control. The 1993 Oslo Accords divided the occupied West Bank into 3 sections: Area A, under the full control of the Palestinian Authority (3% of the West Bank); Area B, under Palestinian civilian control and Israeli military control (25%); and Area C, under the full control of Israel (72%). Designating land as Area C gives Israel unlimited autonomy to do as it pleases and to ignore the rights of Palestinians. For example, according to UN OCHA 94% of Area C planning applications submitted by Palestinians were denied between 2001 and 2007.

One of the main focuses of Israel policy in the area is to clear the Jordan Valley of its Bedouin population. In September 2011 the Israeli government announced its plans to expel 27,000 Bedouin from their homes and lands in the Jordan Valley. This process is due to be completed in the next 3-6 years; the initial stages have already begun.

The role of activism, resistance and international solidarity is crucial in the fight to prevent this attempted ethnic cleansing of the Jordan Valley. Fathe and Itaf will talk on how Palestinian communities and internationals are working together to witness, catalogue and resist Israel’s actions, and the importance of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against apartheid Israel.

One crucial component of the BDS campaign is the small but important resistance movement within Israel itself. This includes the campaign group Boycott from Within.

“We, Palestinians, Jews, citizens of Israel, join the Palestinian call for a BDS campaign against Israel, inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid. We also call on others to do the same.” Boycott from Within Website

Organisations like Boycott from Within are operating within a state becoming increasingly reactionary to the growing success of the calls for the end of the occupation, equal rights for Palestinians within Israel, and the right of return for Palestinian (the three main tenets of the BDS campaign). In July 2011 the Knesset (Israeli parliament) passed an anti-boycott bill, criminalising those who support boycotts of Israel or its illegal occupation and settlements.

The bill has implications for individuals and organisations alike; for example companies deciding not to source products from illegal settlements in the West Bank may be barred from government contracts. More recent Knesset bills have turned their attention to NGOs working in Israel, such as groups aiming to promote human rights.

One such law proposes to place a limit on the funding NGOs can receive from foreign governments and institutions, meaning many will be unable to function.

Leehee Rothschild will be speaking about her involvement in internal resistance movements such as Boycott from Within and Anarchists Against the Wall, as well as exploring issues of propaganda within the Israeli education system.

The talk starts at 7pm on March 1st in room 268 in the MacRobert Building at Aberdeen University. For more information contact: Aberdeen@scottishpsc.org.uk

[i] for example see the International Court of Justice ruling 2004, the Fourth Geneva Convention, and UN Security Council Resolution 446

Garden Of Earthly Delights?

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

Feb 032012

January and February always seem to represent a low time in the year. Christmas and New Year have been and gone and there seems little to look forward to. The days remain short and the nights long. It’s usually raw cold. Unwelcoming. The opening months of the year always cause something of a gloom to hang over Mick Miller’s household. Bung in a global recession for good measure and things seem pretty bleak. Then it got worse. What’s up, Mick?

The post arrived on Monday and out of the two-for-one pizza offer junk mail fell a gaudy catalogue.
Only it wasn’t a catalogue – it had “VOTE” written on it. Promotional blurb for the City Gardens Development.

How profoundly depressing. The front ‘cover’ illustration is of some futuristic landscape from another place.
Only on closer inspection it isn’t. It’s Aberdeen, or, more accurately, a version of Aberdeen which can only have be conceived in cloud cuckoo land.

Real people, in a REAL garden.

It’s lurid, horribly-coloured, glib and vacuous. It is pervaded by a complete sense of the unreal. Semi-transparent people wander aimlessly inside a cartoon-flowered version of reality. Children trample unrestrained, yet the flowers survive.

Out-of-scale human forms laze in some sort of airborne meadow whilst below them, in a throwback connection to the real world, trade waste bins lurk ominously. A woman of Amazonian proportions accesses a laptop whilst sitting on surprisingly unbending grass stems. The remnant spire of the Triple Kirks emerges from a scrubland of low growth stock image shrubbery.

It all looks vaguely ill-tended, neglected, as if within this futuristic vision lie the discards of the past. Or perhaps its a tacit admission that should, god forbid, this monstrosity go ahead, there is just no way that the upkeep will be affordable. Delving deeper, the background is found to comprise of a realigned His Majesty’s Theatre and a hugely-inflated and decapitated William Wallace. A victim of the guillotine perhaps?

But the history, like the whole of this charade, is just plain wrong. Landscape dressed up as farce. A cityscape for Anywhereville. Inaccurate. Disjointed. A cut-and-paste pastiche.

Opening up, things don’t improve. A drab labyrinth of pathways which look like bridges over a motorway, criss-cross manicured lawns and monoculture grasslands. In one image the sun sets….or does it rise? Either way, it’s in the wrong place. What on earth, if we are still on earth, is going on? This is lazy work, a Standard Grade project gone catastrophically wrong. Everything is confusing.

The front page image shows a gaudy flower bed appearing to lie on a lower level of the structure. Moving inside the pamphlet the same floral, er…..’bombshell’, is miraculously elevated. Or is it that those bloody bins are just absolutely HUGE? I’m confused, disturbed even.

I’m going to have a lie down, maybe I’ll feel better and ‘it’ will all have been a bad dream. Only it won’t. It isn’t.

In the sunset image, an oddly-inclined piece of lawn totters precariously into the largely obliterated Denburn valley. In Woody Allen’s Manhatten, a character in a TV show is observed to have a toupee so badly-placed on his scalp that it looks like it has been dropped on to his head from a great height in an uncontrolled way.

This elevated savanna has the same feeling about it. There will be a need for avalanche warnings in the snowy depths of winter.

In another image, a pipe band plays beneath a Formica-lined dome with random cut-outs that give the feeling that the design is based on half a panelled football booted around Pittodrie of a Saturday afternoon. Below this, a winter scene shows people so cold they have started to vapourise as, it would appear, has the Formica football, associated terraces and denuded trees, miraculously large for such a recent planting.

A lone child in a blue jacket has something so contagious that the populace in the foreground seek to distance themselves as quickly as possible. Is he the cause of the vapourisations? Oh I get it – we’re on the set of War of the Worlds and soon tattered clothing will rain down upon us from the sky. I know that was the only good bit. It all has an apocalyptic feel. I’m going to have a lie down, maybe I’ll feel better and ‘it’ will all have been a bad dream. Only it won’t. It isn’t.

Aberdeen is a beautiful city, notwithstanding some recent disastrous architectural additions. It doesn’t need or deserve such ill-thought out attentions as this abomination.

Union Terrace Gardens are an integral part of what allows Aberdeen to maintain its architectural, cultural and civic dignity. The Gardens need some tender loving care, but they don’t need annihalation by the ‘solution’ that this tacky pamphlet proposes.

A heartfelt plea. Please, people, don’t let this thing go ahead. Make sure you vote to retain Union Terrace Gardens.

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.

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 No.58 – The Lie Of The Land

Aberdeen City, Aberdeenshire, Articles, Community, History, Information, Opinion, Satire and Humour No Responses »

Nov 142011

Old Susannah pays her respects, but is unable to maintain her silence as she takes a look around what has been happening in our vibrant and dynamic city and beyond.

Things continue to be vibrant and dynamic this week in the Granite City. On Friday 11 November some 4o-plus people gathered for a minute’s silence to mark those who fell in war. Robert Martin who works nearby in Golden Square told me he first started coming to Union Terrace Gardens for the traditional minute of silence a few years back.
“What better, more peaceful place is there in the heart of the City to have the minute of silence,” he commented.

A gardener tried to tell the group they should be at the war memorial instead – he could not understand that we were all happier in the Denburn Valley.

For the record, this was not a celebration of nationalism, or glorification of war; it was a gesture of respect for those who lost their lives in war. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just stop killing each other, and sort out economic and social problems another way? Maybe that day will still come.

Then there was the enjoyable opening night at Peacock for its winter exhibition. The 400 or so works are on show until 23 December and are all for sale. Alicia Bruce is offering small prints of her iconic photo portraits from the Menie Estate which had such a good reception when she exhibited at Peacock. There are abstracts, portraits, beautiful drawings, and even one or two offerings of mine.

A quick word about litter.

During the week I asked an older man who’d dropped litter to please pick it up. He explained (with some interesting vocabulary words which I must look up) that ‘he didn’t know me’, ‘he didn’t have to’ and ‘I could not make him.’ It was a very impressive display indeed.

Days later I was at Sainsbury’s Berryden, and groups of students (probably just over 20 people in total) had stopped by the store to get their lunch. They had wrappers, bags, papers, serviettes, bottles and so on. And as I waited for a bus, I saw each and every student put their trash in the trashcan near the bus stop.

I am pretty sure they were from St Machar. My appreciation to them and the other people who do the right thing. It’s not difficult, it’s not brain surgery. It does however make a huge difference.

But whatever you were doing this week, everyone’s thoughts were with one brave man who is fighting a valiant struggle of his own. Yes, Stewart Milne’s case went to the Supreme Court on Thursday.

The Press & Journal had no room for this story on the day, due to the breaking news that geothermal energy exists. This astonishing front page special even had a picture of a volcano to illustrate it. I had personally expected a story about a cow with a ladder on its neck, but the geothermal story did the trick, and between it and the massive ads for Milne Homes, no room remained for the little matter of our City being called to the Supreme Court.

Then, Friday, the P&J did run with a story on Milne, which leads neatly to a little definition or two.

Negotiate: (verb, Eng) to settle a conflict or disagreement by compromise.

Those of us who read the Press & Journal story will have felt sorry for Stewart Milne. He claimed the matter could have been settled had Aberdeen City council accepted his offer of negotiation.

According to the P&J, Stewart Milne Group claimed:

“We have offered to go to independent arbitration on several occasions over a long period of time,”

Usually negotiations happen when both sides have a valid argument or case to make. To refresh everyone’s memory, the City sold land at Westhill to Mr M for far less than it was worth – the City’s clever business plan was not to sell the land on the open market, but sell directly to Milne (I am sure there was a great reason).

He got a great price on the understanding the City would eventually get any sale profit. In a really clever and not at all dodgy-looking business manoeuvre, the land moved from one arm of the vast Milne empire to the next, at a cost around £500k –apparently more than what the 11 acres cost in the first place. This was perfectly normal, and could have happened to anyone. Quite truthfully, Milne then indicated that there was no profit to share.

This giant poster in no way looks like a desperate advertising ploy, but it does paper over some cracks nicely.

The City and subsequent courts have disagreed with Mr Milne’s logic (shocking!), and rather than enter ‘negotiation’ over the £1.7 million under dispute, the City decided to see the case all the way through. Milne could have accepted the last court’s verdict, but he appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. If you’ve only got £60 million, then you’ve got to hold onto every penny these days.

The trial was televised, and although Old Susannah is no legal expert, it didn’t look all that great for Stew.

Now we just have to wait for the outcome – at which point no doubt everyone’s favourite football club owner will immediately give Aberdeen the £1.7 million it is owed, plus court costs. I think an apology is also due, and hope the City are drafting one to Mr Milne for taking things this far.

This expensive litigation obviously in no way impacts on the role Mr Milne plays in ACSEF, the City and Shire’s invention which is helping us out of economic chaos. Aside from the bang-up job ACSEF has done so far for our city’s shops, it’s created a brilliant logo for itself, and now has a great big vibrant, dynamic mural at McCombie Court. This giant poster in no way looks like a desperate advertising ploy, but it does paper over some cracks nicely.

In light of Stewart’s logic concerning negotiation, the next time you get mugged or have your wallet snatched, don’t go to the law. Just find out who’s got your money and negotiate to get some of it back. Sorted.

Reading this story about how Stew wanted to negotiate, I wonder if I’m not having déjà vu. This sense comes from the P&J article some time back, when Milne and everyone’s favourite forum, ACSEF, were taking over Peacock Visual Art’s project and turning it into the great City Garden Scheme.

Just before the final, decisive and divisive voting on the project took place, ACSEF / Milne said that Peacock had been offered some kind of 11th hour alternative, but were unwilling to strike a deal. Of course if you read the full story, you would have eventually discovered Peacock said ‘we were never contacted about any deal.’

I hope in future any Peacock person, Aberdeen City legal rep, etc. will just ‘negotiate’ when Stewart wants something – it will save the taxpayer lots of money to just go along with him from the start.

In fact, when I think of Loirston Loch, the Triple Kirks glass box scheme, Pittodrie and so on, I wonder if we haven’t just started to say yes to him already.

Geography: (noun) study of terrain, locations, types of environments and areas.

If you are out there, Pete Leonard, Director of Housing, perhaps you might consider a geography lesson or two. Pete insists Tullos Hill is ‘urban’. The hill is next to all the lovely industrial estates which have helped make Aberdeen the profitable centre of the universe it is, but the hill just isn’t all that ‘urban’. It’s covered with plants, grasses, wildlife, pre-historic cairns and so on.

Here in Aberdeen, there is a complete separation of contractors and councillors

On the word of Mr Leonard, I went to Tullos Hill the other day assuming it had been urbanised. I looked for fast food, a coffee or a monorail ride, but there was nothing of the kind to be found.

It struck me that Ms Malone (who has lately been very, very quiet) might want to look for a new initiative to push. Perhaps if she abandoned the ‘tree for every citizen’ scheme and maybe had ‘a monolith for every citizen’ and/or ‘monorail for every citizen’ scheme, it might increase her popularity. As I hear it, an improvement in her popularity stakes is currently the only possible direction.

Aside from Tullos, other urban areas in our city are easy to recognise by the well-maintained roads and footpaths, the general cleanliness, the complete lack of any crime, and all the many open local shops.

Corruption: (noun, English) a state of dishonesty, lack of integrity, self-interested behaviour of a person or body in a position of trust.

Edinburgh has faced accusations of council corruption. (“At least it couldn’t happen in Aberdeen!” I can practically hear you say.)

For openers, according to the BBC, the hospitality records are incomplete. ( This contrasts with our city’s up-to-date, perfectly set out, fully inclusive records which seem to indicate some councillors went to absolutely no events whatsoever in 2009 and or 2010). But that’s the least of Edinburgh’s problems.

Edinburgh’s councillors are in the firing line for ‘possible fraud and serious wrongdoing’ with regard to building works and property.

Audit Scotland could not decide if the city was just a wee bit disorganised, or if there was a whiff of corruption

It also looks like a city councillor had a holiday paid for by a contractor. Here in Aberdeen, there is a complete separation of contractors and councillors. In those rare occasions when a councillor is somehow connected to a contractor, then they stay well out of any possible conflict situations.

Some years ago we had our own little trouble with Audit Scotland, you may remember.

They had a few uncertainties after a detailed investigation of our city’s property selling activities. There were questions as to why so many properties were being sold below value. Audit Scotland did tell the city to stop selling property at knock-down prices, and otherwise pay attention to details – like who is actually buying your property and what it should sell for. In the end, Audit Scotland could not decide if the city was just a wee bit disorganised, or if there was a whiff of corruption. In the end, they invited our local police to look into the issues.

After a completely thorough, detailed investigation, the police found nothing untoward. Old Susannah is not sure when the investigation was conducted. Then again, I’m not sure when exactly Stewart Milne Group started advertising on police cars, either.

Next week: hopefully a Milne court and FOI case update; a fond look back at the careers of John Stewart and Neil Fletcher, who are not going to run for re-election in May.

Stop press: Christmas Gift Solution: Tired of the usual old boring gifts – the handbag-sized bottle of vodka, the city council carriage clock or branded pen? Look no further for your gift requirements: The City is selling photo prints of its greatest moments. Rather than taking a picture of St Nicholas House or the ACSEF logo yourself to make a welcome gift for a loved one, just go to the City’s website.

What is the most popular subject on sale? Why the Lord Provost of course! There are only about 750 photos of him in action this year but fret not: there are two other years of Lord Provost photos as well. Make a lovely print on canvas, or can be sent to an artist to create a portrait in oils. I just might buy a photo of the Lord Provost handing over a gift and turn it into a mug, a mug for some reasons being the first thing that springs to mind.
See: http://aberdeencitycouncil.newsprints.co.uk/

Stop press 2: there will be a further extension for getting your entries in for the Union Terrace Gardens art competition – more news soon!

Feet War Made Fer Waakin

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

Nov 112011

By Bob Smith.

A’ve waakit up ower Bennachie
Fae Mither Tap hae seen the view
A’ve suntered up the Brimmond Hill
In rain an fin skies war blue

A’ve dannered in bonnie kwintraside
Strode on a Schiehallion ridge
A’ve wannered throwe the Lairig Ghru
Fae Linn o Dee ti Coylumbridge

A’ve climmed up throwe the boulders
Ti win ti the tap o Lochnagar
A’ve aye been affa lucky
Fae the tap a’ve seen afar

A’ve rambled fae Loch Muick
Ti Glen Clova past Glendoll
A’ve dauchled near the Grey Mare’s Tail
Ti see the watterfall

A’ve gin throwe glens an valleys
Each his its ain beauty
A’ve stravaiged aa ower Perthshire
Near Loch Tay at Achnafree

A’ve traversed the slopes o Cloch-na-ben
An seen boulders as big’s ma hoose
The only thing a hinna seen yet
Is the kwintraside aroon Glen Luce

A’ve been on the tap o Peter’s Hill
Fin ye cwidna see fer fog
A’ve been on waaks fit war easy
An some they war a fair slog

Throwe the glen o the River Tanar
A’ve cam ti the slopes o Mount Keen
The walk ti git ti the boddom
Fair keeps ye baith fit an lean

The win his blawn throwe ma hair
The rain his made ma weet
A enjoyed every meenit o’it
Tho noo an agin a hid sair feet.

©Bob Smith “The Poetry Mannie”
Image credit: © Maxim Tupikov | Dreamstime.com

Old Susannah No. 52: The Most Hated Man In Scotland?

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

Sep 232011

Old Susannah looks back at the week that was. By Suzanne Kelly.

Old Susannah is enjoying a glass of ‘Hello… my name is Ingrid’ (a beautiful brew made with cloudberry) at Brewdog, and is reflecting on another busy week in the Deen.
There was the Periurban conference for one thing. This was announced last minute on the City’s website.
It was an international conference on how cities deal with land on the fringes of the urban areas. I guess people from around the world came to see how wonderfully Aberdeen treats Union Terrace Gardens, Tullos Hill, green space at Westhill and Cove, and Loirston Loch.

The two-day conference was opened by the pioneering champion of all things green: Kate Dean.

I sent in an application, and then found myself invited to the second day’s events. For some reason it seemed they didn’t want me on the first day. I heard lots of important speakers, most of whom said urban sprawl is a problem, and we must all use less resources and re-use what we can. Someone even said ‘planting trees is not a solution’ – Cllr HoMalone please take note.

We heard about city centres emptying out if there is too much urban sprawl, with shops closing and crime and social deprivation becoming a problem. I was just surprised no one from Aberdeen explained how our ‘improving’ Union Terrace Gardens into a car park, ‘cosmopolitan cafe’, the hoped-for monorail and building in the greenbelt were going to save the day. I would have loved to have heard it.

One City Council official kept turning around in their seat to look at me; for some reason they almost looked worried I was there. Could it have been the ‘Save the Tullos Deer’ t-shirt I wore under my suit jacket?

Someone was there from a local green charity, and somehow I brought up the deer cull situation (my t-shirt might have helped). The person had no idea why the Scottish SPCA was against the cull and what the other issues were. I happily explained.

Elsewhere in the Deen, someone has decided to leave a cat in a wheelie bin. Perhaps they want as much media attention as the woman from Coventry got? You may remember Mary Bale who cruelly left a cat in a bin for hours on end and was caught out. Let’s see if we can’t find the Aberdeen copycat cat botherer and do for them what the press did for Bale.

It would likewise be a shame if shamed Banff Brothers David and Colin Reid of 22 Boyndie Street West, Banff, got any bad press for their dogfighting activity conviction and jail sentences.

This is the Scottish SPCA’s first major dogfighting conviction in Aberdeenshire (where officials denied there was a problem, you may recall), and it is cause for celebration. The Reids must know something about other dog fighters – let’s hope they roll over. Thankfully, some of the dogs they were abusing have been rescued.

But anyway, here I am in Brewdog wondering what to write about this week.

I am looking at a recent Press & Journal headline which screams in giant letters: ‘IS THIS THE MOST HATED MAN IN SCOTLAND?‘ As I am always happy to follow where the P&J leads, so let’s skip definitions this week and take a look at the most hated man in Scotland instead.

Imagine one man using the legal system to the maximum for his own self-interested ends. Imagine him standing alone, unwilling to listen to the thousands of people who want him to abandon the battle.

Imagine for a minute how much taxpayer money and court time he is willing to use up.

Yes, Mr Milne may well be the most hated man in Scotland. For openers there is the legal battle which he’s taking all the way to the highest court in the UK. For those who don’t know, Milne bought land from the City Council – 11 acres in Westhill – for some £335,000. (By the way, who do the rest of us have to know to get deals like that? Jane – can you help?). The land is worth millions.

Apparently Milne agreed with the City to pay a portion of any sale/rental profit to the City. In a really sharp, not at all transparent move, the land was sold from one arm of the vast Milne empire to another Milne company. As you’d expect, such a deal cost over £500,000 to do. Or so Milne claims when his companies say there was no profit left after the sale. Seems pretty clear to me.

Yes, Milne is appealing (but not to most of us).

You’d have thought that our very generous Council wouldn’t go bothering Stew for a mere 1.7 million pounds (goodness knows the City can waste that much with ease), but it seems the City will be trying to claw back the money.

The courts found in the City’s favour – but Milne would rather drag us on through the legal system and cost the taxpayer more money than shell out.

Yes, Milne is appealing (but not to most of us). Of course if you weigh this against all the associated costs, then there probably won’t be much financial gain. Here’s a clever idea: let’s stop selling our assets at less money than they are worth. Who knows? We might wind up less than the £50 million in debt we currently are. But back to Milne.

We come to the subject of the once-beautiful game. Someone’s decided it’s much better to do land deals than try and win matches.

Milne will develop Pittodrie (which could have been rennovated – this has been done elsewhere in the UK) and build in the greenbelt well out of town. Loirston Loch will be greatly improved by the new stadium. What the remaining wildlife will make of the lack of land, the cars, the additional pollution and inevitable trash is another matter.

I wonder what it’s like to be less popular than the Donald? Will the Dons become the Donalds?

The bottom line is the stadium will glow in the dark (!) and we can have Elton John and Rod Stewart concerts!. (Who cares that two BBC stories this week prove another link between ill health and car exhaust fumes, and Scotland’s wildlife continues to diminish?)

You would have thought that AFC fans would be jumping for joy at the chance to drive/bus/walk to Loirston. Instead, many of them want Milne to jump ship. Things are so desperate that some fans are actively inviting Donald Trump to invest in the club. Ouch.

I wonder what it’s like to be less popular than the Donald? Will the Dons become the Donalds? Mr Milne might want to stay away from Facebook or AFC fan sites for a wee while, where there is just a hint of dissatisfaction. Such ingratitude – and after all he’s done to us. Sorry – I mean ‘for us’.

Stew’s not very popular in the city centre either. In his proposal for Triple Kirks, he’s promised us more office buildings. Result!

So who’d have thought that putting two glass box buildings next to the Triple Kirk spire (and probably chasing those pesky peregrine falcons away in the process) could make you unpopular? There will be office space – and who wants anything more than more office space?

I’m afraid to say Mr Milne is now as popular with golfers as fox-batterer Forbes would be at an animal rights meeting.

The only problem is parking (not that that is hindering him developing Pittodrie or in creating the stadium – neither has adequate parking in their plans). Where on earth will Stew find any parking solutions close to Triple Kirks? If only there was some empty, under-used space nearby – maybe something that ‘only has grass’ in it. He could have car parking, the offices would go ahead without a hitch, he’d rake in some money.

People would be amazingly grateful: we would get parking, shopping and ‘cosmopolitan cafes’ – where we can sit and drink coffee year round and be, er, cosmopolitan. If only Stew or his pal Ian could think of some solution to the problem, it would mean more money for Milne. There are some people who think the consultation should have been handled by the city with a lengthy consultation, and that the listed status of Triple Kirks carried a bit of weight. These people were of course wrong.

And let’s face it: Milne could be low on cash. Am I alone in thinking he’s short? He’s chasing a mere 1.7 million through the courts (when he’s supposedly worth about 60 million). He’s about to lay off workers up and down Scotland – he says he can’t afford them.

Perhaps he expanded a bit too quickly? Perhaps he thought new building would continue for ever? Well – with our City Council it just might.

It seems a little ironic that the City is giving Milne contracts (some recent ones total over ten million) while he is both dragging the city through the courts and firing Aberdonians in the building trade. But the people who are in charge know best.

For reasons of space, I’ll limit this to just one more aspect of the man’s popularity. I’m afraid to say Mr Milne is now as popular with golfers as fox-batterer Forbes would be at an animal rights meeting. It seems that the Portlethen community council and those who use Portlethen Golf Club are up in arms over Milne’s plans to build 153 houses so close to the course that there may be a few problems. Safe to say, people are teed off.

There you have it. The Press & Journal had their own front-page suggestion for ‘the most hated man in Scotland.’ Some of us have a different candidate for that title.

Last word: City Council employees: stop criticising your wonderful employers and managers on the Intranet. First: they don’t like it and are drafting all kinds of means to stop your free speech. Second: that’s my job. I understand they may participate in a 24-hour ‘tweeting’ session to say what excellent services they’ve got going. You are cordially uninvited to tweet back.

Where The Square? – An Update On TIF

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

Sep 062011

By Mike Shepherd.

Aberdeen Council have recently noted an interest in applying for Tax Incremental Funding (TIF) from Scottish Government funds. The idea is that the Council would underwrite a loan of possibly £80M or more, £70M of which would be used to help pay for the City Square Project. The final application for funding will not be made until December, by which time a business case for TIF will have been completed.

Earlier this year, the then Council leader John Stewart, extended the remit of TIF to include city centre projects other than the city square. These are:

The City Circle Project: A walkway connecting Union Square and the railway station in a circuit from Guild Street, along Market Street through the St Nicholas Centre, down Schoolhill through the City Garden down Bridge Street and rejoining Guild Street to complete the circuit. Basically, it’s a walkway whereby shoppers in Union Square will be heavily prompted to visit the rest of the city by signs and possibly colour coding.

St Nicholas House Redevelopment: A recent council document stated this:

“In the current property market, however, the Council is concerned that developers will be unwilling to take the risk of demolishing redundant parts of the site, delaying any sale and redevelopment and resulting in a vacant city centre eyesore for a number of years. The council therefore wishes to pre-clear the site, to prepare it for sale, and bring forward development.

“The aspiration is that the tower, if not demolished, would be stripped back to its’ skeleton ready for redevelopment, and recladding and put to new uses either as a hotel, apartments or offices, and a new public square would be created to improve the setting of Marischal College and establish a focal point for a new ‘civic quarter’.”

Of interest in this statement is that the possibility of building a public square next to St. Nicholas House has been resurrected. This otherwise hasn’t been mentioned recently in council papers.

The document mentioned is the Aberdeen City Centre Redevelopment Economic Impact Assessment Information, August 2011. This provides information for a questionnaire to be answered by some 500 organisations and individuals which would provide feedback to assess the economic impact of TIF.

Denburn Valley Health Centre Development: From the same document:

“The health centre on the roof is reaching the end of its design life and NHS Grampian is looking to vacate the building. Planning guidance issued by Aberdeen City Council has called for “imaginative” development of the site using the “highest standard of design and materials to complement the surrounding urban form, listed buildings and conservation area”. Redevelopment must continue to provide for substantial public car parking on the site and is expected to comprise largely commercial space for small and medium businesses and some residential development.”

Aberdeen Art Gallery:

“Infrastructure and development required to link the Art Gallery and Cultural Quarter to the City Gardens including partial redevelopment of the gallery and creation of additional gallery space.”

The Scottish Futures Trust (SFT) are seeking six ‘pathfinder’ projects to help establish the feasibility of TIF in Scotland. Three projects have been approved (Edinburgh Waterfront Development, Ravenscraig, and the Buchanan Quarter in Glasgow) and three more are being sought.

There is strong interest as Barry White, Chief Executive of the SFT told me in an email last week:

“I can confirm that we have received a submission from Aberdeen City Council and will be considering it along with the submissions received from many other local authorities over the coming days.”

The Case for TIF in Aberdeen.

Tax Incremental Funding is well established in the United States and has recently been introduced to the UK. The idea is that a local authority borrows a sum of money for a development project from Government funds and that the extra business rates generated by the development is captured to pay off the loan over 25 years for instance.
It works best where a brownfield site is used to develop a large scale business operation, the revenue from which is to some extent predictable. In this instance, the risk on a council borrowing a large sum of money is mitigated by a sound business model.

The Aberdeen TIF case is largely predicated on the City Square rejuvenating business in the city centre. There would only be a small amount of revenue generated on site and this would be insufficient in itself to provide business rates to pay back a large loan. Instead, it would be hoped to capture business rates from the surrounding city centre both from rates generated by extra business and new developments.

Trying to predict how much extra business will result from a new city square will be to a major extent speculative with a large uncertainty involved. In other words, if Aberdeen Council borrowed £80M through TIF this would be based on hope rather than certainty that the money could be paid back.

Aberdeen Council is £562M in debt according to an Evening Express report earlier this year. The interest on the debt is paid from the revenue budget and soaks up cash that could otherwise be used for service and amenities. The Council cannot afford to take a risk on being left with more debt to service, the budget is under severe strain as it is. On the other hand, I have been told that the city is so short of capital for spending that it is unlikely that there would be any investment in the city centre without TIF.

The £70M loan for a city square would be a loan too far; particularly given how unpopular the project is in the city. There is tacit recognition in the questionnaire document that the City Square Project may never happen.

“This option considers the outcome where the City Garden Project is not realisable, but the other projects are. In this scenario, economic benefit and new business rates would be generated primarily by the North Denburn Valley and St Nicholas House developments. Although likely to be less than would be the case if the City Gardens were to be realised, these two projects would nevertheless likely provide the basis for a smaller TIF.”

In this instance, Aberdeen would get a public square at St Nicholas, which is where most people wanted it in the first place.

Old Susannah No. 46 – Thinking Outside The Box

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

Aug 042011

Old Susannah looks back at the week that was and wonders who’s up to what and why. By Suzanne Kelly.

Tartan Day.

A few impressive pipe bands, some knights in armour, and the Lord and Lady Provost paying tribute to the legacy of William Wallace. Wallace famously fought for independence for his people against the rich and powerful tyrants of the day, who thought they were above the law.

You might say Wallace took ‘direct action’ to extremes. How pleased he would have been to think our Provost and Council uphold the principles for which he was hung, drawn and quartered.

His statue of course overlooks the remains of the historic Denburn Valley, known to you and me as Union Terrace Gardens: also known to Wood and Milne as a cashcow. How exactly the Wallace monument will look adjacent to any of the mysterious, unexplained, undisclosed £140 million pound proposals will be anyone’s guess.

No doubt we will wind up with something that sensitively ‘connects’ the Victorian park to the impressive granite architecture. In short expect glass, concrete, parking spaces and a monorail platform. I suppose we could always take Wallace down and sell him for scrap metal to help with the UTG fundraising. He’d have wanted it that way I am certain.

A few interesting titbits have been coming in from here and there. Ms Valerie Watts showed up to speak to a Community Council Forum earlier this week, but she was unamused to be asked about the Tullos Hill roe deer cull.

Ms Watts also owes me a reply to a formal complaint on the whole Tullos issue; I’ve chased it up (again) today.

In fact the City is launching a PR offensive, and has offered to have officers present the tree proposal to community councils. You might want to contact your council for details – the question and answer sessions (if any) alone should be worth showing up for. We are told the community councils ‘only know what’s been in the media’, and don’t know the whole facts.

Media’s fault of course. Nothing to do with the council not giving the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth from the start of this great plan. Of course if people wanted to write to Ms Watts to either support or reject the cull (or ask how the £43,800 ‘repayment’ was accidentally forgotten when I asked about it), all they have to do is drop an email to her at chiefexecutive@aberdeencity.gov.uk.

Feel free to ask any questions you want; but as a health and safety precaution, do not hold your breath until the answer arrives. At this rate we won’t get on with any definitions, so without any further ado, I will get stuck in.

Association of Community Councils

(noun) a collective body promoting the importance of community councils. A not-for-profit body with the following aims (well at least until it is culled next year):

“To encourage exchanges of information between Community Councils.
“To promote examples of best practice in the work of Community Councils
“To offer impartial and unbiased advice, training and information to Community Councils
“To facilitate communication between national bodies and Community Councils
“To preserve the independence of each Community Council
“To ascertain, collect, and express nationally, the views of Community Councils.
From: http://www.ascc.org.uk/about

Unfortunately, it’s very, very expensive to run this Association. It costs a massive £70,000 per year to run*, so obviously this forum for sharing ideas and experiences to strengthen community councils must be culled.

Aberdeen has its own unique way of dealing with community councils – it ignores them. When it comes to consultations about deer, travellers, Union Terrace Gardens, closing schools or cutting services, our City Councillors generously take decisions without unduly burdening the elected community councillors.

Nigg Community Council was told, not asked, about the takeover of its park by Cove Bay Rangers football club (fan club president: Ms Kate Dean). They were told, not asked over the deer cull and the Loirston Loch stadium. Just this week Nigg CC for some reason objected to a housing officer’s plans to throw Calder Park open to travellers for a few months.

What’s wrong with not being asked about this great plan in advance, I wonder?

This is all part of the City’s ‘consultation’ and ‘transparency’ drive. Once the Association of Community Councils is gone, the Community Councils will be on their own. In fact I’m surprised we haven’t had city councillors trying to kill off the community councils yet. Some of these councils get nearly £3,000 a year or so to help people in their communities.

Perhaps it would be better to leave important matters to our tried and tested, honest, reliable, transparent, vibrant central government officials and councillors (well, the ones who keep out of jail and don’t get arrested for kerb crawling anyway. Great minds like HoMalone, The Fletch and The Dean and so on). I know I can barely get through a day on my own without their guidance.

The Association stood up for the community councils, shared best practice, shared experiences, and helped people (me directly for one) – no wonder it had to go.

*Note: £70K doesn’t’ get you much these days. Aberdeen’s ‘Change Manager’ earns £80,000 per year. Scottish Enterprise costs some £750 million per year. And ACSEF’s annual running costs? No one knows for certain.

Streamline

(verb) to abbreviate, shorten, abridge an object or procedure.

Central Government has recently announced it wants to ‘stop’ people creating future impediments to great projects like the AWPR. The Loirston Loch stadium, being plunked in the heart of greenbelt land, never even got called in.

Time for more projects like the stadium to be ‘streamlined.’

You will have seen the dreadful news this week. There was nothing sensationalist or alarmist in the Evening Express headline which told us in effect ‘Not building the AWPR costs £1 million per month’! Absolutely shocking! To think that people who don’t want this road built actually are standing up and using their legal rights to challenge it! They even have the nerve to challenge the public/private funding mechanism the government wants to use to pay for the dream highway.

Obviously I believe it costs at least £1 million a month not to build the road – but you might want to have a look at what the Road Sense people think actually building the road will cost:- http://www.road-sense.org/AWPR-MortgagingYourFuture.html .

I wouldn’t worry too much about their figures. The road isn’t going to cost you a great deal of money. However your children and their children’s cost for the road is another story, but like Scarlett O’Hara – with PPI financing, you can ‘worry about it tomorrow.’ Financially, it is as sensible as the funding plans for the ‘transformation’ of Union Terrace Gardens.

‘Streamlining’ planning applications can only be a good thing.

If anyone out there can figure out how much the AWPR has already cost in consultants and consultations, I’d really like to hear from you. Let’s be fair – there was a consultation. A great big costly travelling consultation, with bells and whistles.

Of course the routes suggested in the very expensive consultation have nothing to do whatsoever with the road plans as they stand now, but let’s not split hairs. Money is very tight right now. We’ve got to cut corners (if we’re going to have the dosh to keep a couple of wars and our banks going).. The suggestion of ‘streamlining’ the justice system to get rid of pesky jury trials was a great idea – we may still get that one.

‘Streamlining’ planning applications can only be a good thing.

It is very reassuring to know that Alex Salmond is putting his mind to this worthy end. We really should have made it easier for that nice Mr Trump from America to build the world’s greatest environmental disaster – sorry – golf course at Menie… Look how much good it’s doing for everyone! Jobs creations! Tourists! Holiday Homes! Stabilised Sand dunes (my personal favourite). So if we don’t immediately agree to start building the £191 million pound road (old estimate), then we are losing £1 million per month – if not per day!

This can’t go on. I wouldn’t dare to question this statistic, as it was in print and must be accurate. (By the way, assuming the costs haven’t risen from the £191 million, the new AWPR can be yours in only 16 years at £1 million per month – or twice that with PPI financing).

Let’s just start saying ‘yes’ to everything. We have a government that wants to build as much stuff as it can, and it doesn’t want the likes of us to have to worry about the details. I think they’re just trying to be helpful. To someone.

Direct Action

(mod English noun) form of protest where the protestors stage some kind of highly visible challenge to opponents, to call attention (especially media attention) to an issue or problem .

This form of protest is increasingly popular with environmental and economic activists. And it freaks the government out completely – which is totally wrong of course.

In a long-forgotten age, if your elected officials acted improperly or against the common good, you could write a letter and expect some form of answer. If you didn’t get the answer you wanted, you could stage a protest march, get petitions signed, and so on.

It’s not as if our Government is scared of protestors.

If you still had no success with your cause in the good old days, you could take to the forests and rob the rich and give to the poor, or board a ship filled with tea from England and throw its contents into Boston Harbour. Or have a revolution.

But no one ever remembers such events these days, and writing letters and starting petitions is much, well –safer. Still, it’s a bit easier to ignore a petition than the Boston Tea Party. Robin Hood is remembered as a hero, and King John the villain. Who I wonder are our future heroes and villains? Whose statues will be revered at the future Union Terrace car park and shopping mall?

It’s not as if our Government is scared of protestors. If they were, they would have (for instance) put an undercover cop like Mr Mark Kennedy in place to spy on environmental protestors for seven years. It does look like the poor policeman went ‘native’ in the end, and the courts did not think much of the police tactics used.

Such unwarranted police paranoia would never override principles of a democratic, free society. But as the Met are not prepared to discuss this matter (even though it’s been all over the newspapers), we have to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Old Susannah will introduce ‘Just Do It’ next week at the Belmont; there will be discussion afterwards as well.

‘Just Do It’ follows a group of environmental protestors as they meet their assorted targets and enemies head on. If you’re free on Friday 12 Aug at 6.30, please do come along. I have had a preview of the film, and can promise it will raise a few interesting issues. (Rumours that the sale of deer antler headbands are about to go through the roof in Aberdeen are unconfirmed).