Cllr Kevin M Stewart

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A Connected City

Cllr Kevin M Stewart - Aberdeen Central MSP

In my short(ish) lifetime Aberdeen City Centre trading has changed dramatically with the growth of the malls, the exodus of many retailers to out of town developments and the demise of many local businesses. At the same time many things like poor roads and transport connections have remained almost exactly the same as they were when I was a youngster.

My vision for Aberdeen City Centre is to see a thriving, bustling area with much better connectivity, where Aberdeen’s unique granite architecture remains to the fore and to create a place where local companies can grow to compliment the services provided by the national chains.

At the moment our City Centre is not particularly well connected and the lack of pedestrian priority has led to the perception that the City Centre is vast when the reality is that it is pretty compact. The net result is a large volume of traffic (cars) moving about the City Centre trying to get to the car park they think is closest to where their main shopping or leisure activity is to be done.  We need to remove the perception that the City is difficult to walk about in. Far greater priority needs to be given to pedestrians, this doesn’t necessarily mean pedestrianisation, but does mean reduced traffic and ease of access between different parts of the inner City.

For example the movement between College Street car park or Union Square to Union Street is very poor. This needs to be improved by making it easier to cross Guild Street (perhaps by banning traffic other than buses) and improving access to Union Street – escalators, lifts or equivalent at Back Wynd steps and at the Correction Wynd gap. The proposed City Square project if it comes to fruition offers an opportunity to also increase this pedestrian movement via a suitable link from Union Terrace Gardens to both the Green and the station rather than the current unsuitable, unpleasant, mineshaft-like link from the station to the Trinity Centre.


A further example of this could be Schoolhill where traffic could be banned between the access to Harriet Street and Flourmill Lane. Such pedestrian priority would create a core City Centre with pedestrian priority bounded by Union Terrace, Schoolhill, Broad Street, Market Street (North) Guild Street and Bridge Street. Traffic could be removed from Market St (North) by making this access only. Cross City traffic would have two routes Market St/ Virginia St/ East North St and College St/ Denburn Road which would benefit from simplified junctions (traffic having been removed from some of the junctions).
Having less traffic in the inner area of the City Centre would also lead to greater bus punctuality, which should in turn lead to greater bus patronage, less cars and hopefully less congestion.  In my opinion, the Guild Street bus station is inadequate and proposed City Square project if it goes ahead should lead to the creation of a public transport hub / interchange as well as providing an even bigger green lung for our City Centre.  In terms of improving bus and car movement we should also consider opening up a symapthetic link over the Castlegate to Justice Street to ease pressures on King Street without there being a huge impact on the civic space and architecture there.

I believe that in order create and maintain a vibrant City Centre we must continue to attract businesses to the area and that is why we need a comprehensive retail strategy and the right planning policies to minimise large out of town retail developments and to refocus on our City Centre. Personally, I believe its time to help develop new local businesses and the Retail Rocks initiative that is being piloted in Torry may well provide the blueprint for this kind of development and if it is successful, it or a similar scheme should be rolled out into the City Centre.

We must also play catch-up with other areas and create a Business Improvement District, where the priorities are brought to the fore and where the extra finance from business can be used to improve the entire City Centre experience, in areas such as cleanliness, safety, job creation and increasing visitor numbers. The private and public sectors must work in partnership to ensure that Aberdeen City Centre continues to thrive.

We should not forget that the City Centre was once a vibrant residential area and I believe that in order to continue its sustainability it should become so again. There has been reticence on the part of planners and politicians to allow a lot of residential development because of conflict, particularly with the perceived conflict of having folk living near bars and clubs, but this is normal in many other cities. Why should we not have more people living in Union Street? Why should we continue to peddle the view that residential areas should be separate from commercial ones? This was not the view of our forebears and it is debatable if Aberdeen City Centre would have had its grand architecture if it had been.

Finally, the architects, builders and dare I say it politicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who shaped the City Centre were not afraid of change and in my opinion we must all follow their lead in this regard.

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