Feb 242012
 

By Mike Shepherd.

The polling cards are out for the Union Terrace Gardens referendum and you have until March 1 to vote. The hype means you’ll have been bombarded with leaflets, pamphlets, news items and radio adverts.
If ‘connectivity’, a ‘21st century contemporary garden’, or ‘street-level access’ are key factors in deciding your vote, look no further; vote for the City Garden Project.

If you are undecided or swithering then read these very good reasons for voting to retain Union Terrace Gardens. 

1. Your vote will preserve the look and feel of the Granite City. Union Terrace Gardens are an integral part of the heritage of Aberdeen. Planned by the same architects who designed the Art Gallery and the frontage of Marischal College, they show an architectural harmony in the city centre which would be destroyed by a modernistic City Garden.

2. Your vote will not result in a ghastly modern structure replacing our park. Although described as the City Garden, it is in fact a mixture of buildings, flyovers, underpasses and parkland. The design has a passing resemblance to 1960s-style new town architecture. At one public meeting, someone said that the underpasses in particular were likely to end up as urban no-go areas. I have even heard a supporter of the scheme conceding that it will look dated after about five to ten years.

3. Your vote will stop a multitude of new glass box office blocks being built in the city centre. Council documents show that consideration has been given to plans to build a central business district in the city centre and encourage office block construction. The building of the City Garden Project, “will encourage development in the city centre sooner, and on a bigger scale, than might otherwise be the case without public investment in enabling infrastructure.”

4. Your vote will improve our much-loved park. Jimmy Milne, oilman and MD of Balmoral Group, has said:

“I and many of my business contemporaries, are committed to establishing a fund which will help bring the gardens back to their former glory. Without destroying our heritage, and without putting Aberdeen City further into debt, it would not be difficult to breathe fresh life into the park. Improved access, new planting, cleaning and restoration, park wardens and live events could all be relatively easily and cost effectively achieved.”

5. Your vote will ensure that the mature trees in Union Terrace Gardens will be saved. All 77 trees will be kept, including the twelve elms, some of which are at least 200 years old.

6. Your vote will stop our Council borrowing £70m they can’t afford. Aberdeen City Council, £562m in debt, is being asked to borrow £70m through a risky tax scheme to help fund the City Garden Project. If there is insufficient money to pay back the loan, Council funds will be required to service it.

7. Your vote will avoid significant disruption and pollution in the city centre for the near three years it will take to build the scheme. The technical feasibility study for the project estimates that the equivalent of 3,947 dump trucks of earth and 4,605 dump trucks of granite will be excavated from the Gardens causing ‘large environmental impacts from noise, transport, dust and energy use.’

8. Your vote will avoid the major traffic problems caused by the movement of heavy lifting equipment, dumper trucks and lorries in and out of the city centre. It is estimated that the City Garden will take almost three years to build. It is likely that there will be major traffic problems in the city for much of this time. City centre business will be impacted by this and may never recover.

9. Your vote will avoid much, if not all, of the Council’s cultural activities being displaced to the underground building in the City Garden. The council funds institutions occupying cosy, intimate venues such as the Music Hall, Lemon Tree and Belmont Cinema. A review of council-funded cultural activities will be made with a view to possible relocation to the underground concourse.

10. Your vote will avoid any consideration that the future of the HM Theatre could be in doubt. Two major performance venues will be built in the City Garden only yards from HM Theatre. Councillors have asked if this will have an impact on the future of HM Theatre. No specific assurances have been given.

Aberdeen could change forever if the City Garden is built, and probably not for the better.

We have the chance to keep the leafy, green heart of the Granite City. 

VOTE: RETAIN UNION TERRACE GARDENS

Jan 062012
 

Over three years ago, Sir Ian Wood announced the City Square Project with the intention of replacing Union Terrace Gardens with “a cross between the Grand Italian Piazza and a mini Central Park.” It has since been renamed the City Garden Project. The cost of building the project is nominally £140 million, of which it has been proposed that £70M of this would be borrowed by Aberdeen City Council involving a tax scheme.  Mike Shepherd offers some analysis of current local government trends, the recession, and what it may mean for Aberdeen.

So what is the justification being put forward for this expensive project, a project that has caused so much controversy since it was announced?

The project’s supporters allege the City Garden Project is needed to ensure that Aberdeen is attractive enough to retain energy professionals long term and to ensure Aberdeen’s economy is based on tourism post-oil.

For instance, an advert by ACSEF in the Press and Journal (January 2010) stated that:-

“Creating a new heart for Aberdeen presents a unique opportunity to put the city on the ‘must visit’ list.”

 Aberdeen City Council is £562 million in debt (2010 figure).
See:
http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/02/21143624/4

Last November, Perth and Kinross Council approved demolishing the listed Perth Town Hall to build a Civic Square in its place, a move that has raised much controversy.  The BBC reported:

“The council said many local businesses supported the civic square proposal. And council officers have argued that full demolition and reuse of the site as a public space would provide the most additional value to the local economy.  The cost of scheme is estimated at £4.4m, but the report said an additional 15,000 people per year would extend their stay in the city, with an extra 60,000 coming for events. “This would result in a combined additional spend per person per visit of £23 generating a total gross expenditure of £1.65m per annum,” it added.
See:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-15742937

Perth and Kinross Council is £222 Million in debt (2010 figure).

A similar controversy has been raging in Cork, Ireland, where the struggling Cork Council has been involved in a plan to install the Sky Garden Project. Celebrity TV gardener Diarmuid Gavin’s Irish Sky Garden won the gold medal at the Chelsea Flower Show (It looks like a giant hanging flower basket).

  There is a pattern here. Local governments the world over are in serious debt

The Council agreed to put the garden on permanent display in the city’s Fitzgerald Park at a cost of at least €300,000, with more than €1.7 million given to the project by Fáilte Ireland, the Irish tourism body.

In tones, redolent of the Aberdeen controversy, the Irish Independent wrote:

“THE taxpayer could be hit with a further bill of over €100,000 in costs connected to Diarmuid Gavin’s award-winning garden.

“Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan said the council needed to clarify precisely how much the garden cost, and what the council would pay in transport, insurance and operating costs. He also expressed disbelief that the garden — including its 30-metre high floating ‘pod’ and crane — may only open for three months each year.

“I love gardens and flowers and parks, but this is absolutely ridiculous. You’d put a hell of a lot of flower beds around the city for this kind of money. We should keep our feet on the ground not in the clouds with a sky garden’,” Mr Tynan said

“There are 500 boarded-up council houses in Cork and 120 people with various disabilities waiting on home adaptations. But the funding to go to all this has been cut by central government,” he added.

“Last night, the council said support for the “iconic garden” was in line with the policy that led to the creation of successful visitor attractions in the city.”

“This is part of a long-term policy to create a necklace of top tourist attractions that will bring people to Cork, get them to stay longer here and spend more money here,” a council spokesman said.

“Fáilte Ireland insisted that the garden would generate significant tourism earnings.”

See: http://www.independent.ie/national-news/diarmuid-gavinrsquos-euro2m-lsquosky-gardenrsquo-growing-in-cost-2661548.html

There is a pattern here. Local governments the world over are in serious debt. Services and amenities are being cut, yet it doesn’t stop them from spending money on expensive big-ticket items that might bring visitors in.  There is a feedback loop between local government, chambers of commerce and national government that serves to create the syndrome, “if we build it, they will come”.

  While a worthy cause, this has caused controversy as the annual budget will be part-funded by the city’s Common Good Fund

Where local economies have failed as in Cork for example, tourism may be the last throw of the dice to engender outside income.  There will be much competition for the dwindling number of international tourists as the recession bites. Recent reports suggest that countries such as Greece and Spain will focus relentlessly on promoting tourism as the last glimmer of light in their busted economies.

Aberdeen has caught up on the trend of pushing long-term tourism. The local chamber of commerce have been promoting a new destination marketing organisation for the city called ‘Visit Aberdeen’.

While a worthy cause, this has caused controversy as the annual budget will be part-funded by the city’s Common Good Fund; £107,000 for 2011 / 2012 and potentially for the next six years also. Arguably this is more ‘commerce good’ than ‘common good’.

The draft business plan recognises the future of the City Garden Project / Union Terrace Gardens as a primary issue. It is to be hoped that an organisation part-funded by Common Good money will not be promoting the controversial development of a public park that lies on Common Good land.
See: http://committees.aberdeencity.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=15678

Are the citizens of Aberdeen willing to support the allocation of scarce resources to “a build it and they might come” vision for the city, allowing a public park to be developed for the sake of possible future tourists? Or is this all pie in the sky stuff that will use up money desperately needed elsewhere and will result in the appearance of the Granite City changing forever?

You have the chance to decide yourself.  The referendum on the fate of Union Terrace Gardens will be held in February.