Simpson Buglass

An (incomplete) Vision for Aberdeen

Simpson Buglass - Partner, Graham + Sibbald, AGCC Council Member

With my background in land and property, and thirty years experience of working in Aberdeen, my vision principally (but not entirely) focuses on the urban landscape. Any visitor to Aberdeen would be struck by its position; beside the sea, and between two famous rivers, each of which stretches back into the Grampian Mountains, connecting the City with an equally famous hinterland.

At a time when other cities across the UK, Europe and the world have been transforming their townscapes to make the most of what natural features geography or history had bestowed upon them, or in some cases using imagination and ambition to introduce new features, Aberdeen has been largely content to tinker with the edges of its natural gifts and allow market forces and national planning guidelines essentially to maintain the status quo, so much so that a visitor to the City today would be hard-pressed to see any significant changes in the past twenty or thirty years.

During this same period other cities in Scotland (such as Dundee and Glasgow), have altered their urban landscapes to create truly transformed townscapes. These permanent visual and environment legacies allow a City to project a positive image of what it thinks of itself, inform and shape the opinions and self-worth of its residents, and convey a sense of civic pride. Such initiatives have been absent from Aberdeen. An astonishing state of affairs really when one considers that the past thirty-plus years have delivered to Aberdeen and Aberdonians a period of unparalleled wealth and prosperity in the City’s 1,000+ year history.

Aberdeen urgently requires to “raise the bar” in terms of its civic ambition. For too long its leadership has been found wanting in terms of imagination and ambition for the City. Aberdeen needs to form and implement a modern world-class plan for its urban landscape, truly worthy of Europe’s energy capital and vital engine of the UK economy. One recent speck of light is the imaginative use of Marischal College as municipal offices, although it is essential for the stone cleaning of the adjacent church to be done.

National planning guidelines are implemented by the council as statutory planning authority. However ,Aberdeen needs to set its own standards in terms of the quality of design imposed on building owners and developers. This can be achieved by setting an example and even using compulsory purchase powers to acquire then sell on land with conditions to ensure development which is envisaged takes place.

Aberdeen needs to lose its attachment to preserving the past. Its love of granite and look-alike materials needs to be left behind and the City needs to embrace the new, the bold and the adventurous. This requires a shift in mind-set. We should insist on top-class designs for new buildings going forward.

Natural Environment - Grand schemes are very effective at setting the tone and establishing environmental credentials. I would like to see an integrated environmental plan which sets out to make the most of Aberdeen’s natural gifts and move the City away from the mentality of “Britain in Bloom” towards a self-generated target of more natural landscaping throughout the City.
Built Environment – Aberdeen needs to set its stall out in an open and unambiguous manner where the emphasis is on world-class design. Nothing less should be accepted. Release of council land, or purchase of land by a civic development company, specifically to lead the way in the creation of world class and iconic buildings, would be one route to achieve this. Lead by example. The council is to be congratulated in its imaginative re-use of Marischal College.

It would be too easy to provide a long list of lost opportunities and bad decisions. So what follows are areas of concern which the City requires to address going forward. This list ignores the parlous economic state of the nation, so it requires to be tempered with current financial reality. However, this reality should only be allowed to inform the timetable of implementation, and not the make-up of the list itself.

Opportunities

• Employment Land Infrastructure funding. Anything that the Council or the Scottish Government can do here would clearly be to the public good. Too much employment land is zoned but incapable of being serviced, either because of the current general lack of banking finance, or because of disconnected capital plans and budgets within the public utilities. A logical activity for a local civic development company to become involved in.
• AWPR.  This is essential and will bring considerable economic benefit throughout the whole region.
• BID.  I hope that the business community grasps this opportunity with both hands.
• TIF. Properly targeted this should fund desirable development through hypothecation of local taxes which would otherwise “head south”.
• Union Terrace Gardens. I see this as an environmental project in the short term and an economic regeneration project in the medium to longer term. Properly designed as gardens (trees, flowers, grass, winter-palace, sitting areas, public performance area) it will provide a highly attractive central focus in the middle of Aberdeen, linking the museum, art gallery and theatre with Union St, The Music Hall and also connect directly into the rail and bus stations. Personally, I would prefer to see it incorporate a lower deck of parking which would allow the council to dispose of their Chapel St and Denburn car parks and add the proceeds into the UTC funding pot.
• Environmental Improvement Initiatives. The Aberdeen City Centre Partnership had a positive and lasting impact on the City Centre through promotion of resumption of residential occupation of unoccupied upper floors in the City Centre, pocket parks and environmental improvements to Castlegate and the Green. Similar objectives should be a constant part of Aberdeen’s urban strategy going forward. I suspect that Aberdeen might be the UK City which has capitalised least from its riverside opportunities, be it iconic buildings, connected pathways or the creation of new public open spaces. For example, the council should acquire (compulsorily if necessary) the Harbour Board’s land and buildings at the east end of South Esplanade West with the intention of creating continuous public open space from Victoria Bridge to Queen Elizabeth 2 Bridge.
• Urban Regeneration Initiatives. I would like to see these not just resulting from single site responses such as Stoneywood  Mill, Davidson’s Mill, Mugiemoss and Grandholm Mill, but be part of a pro-active approach to planning and development facilitation. The area between Union Square retail Centre and North Esplanade West should be turned into a modern, high-density, mixed-use redevelopment area with an insistence on high-quality design and architecture. This area has the potential to become Aberdeen’s mini Docklands
• Energetica. This is an ambitious energy industry scheme specifically geared towards promoting high quality work/live environments from Bridge of Don to Peterhead. The south end of this project will have a positive impact on the City and offer the project its earliest successes. Taking this lead, the City should designate a number of high-quality live/work locations where existing high-amenity environments can be complemented by appropriate world-class development.

Past Mistakes

Bridge of Dee retail: There can’t be many cities which willingly agree to the creation of five aircraft hangers (ASDA, B+Q, Sainsbury etc) to greet visitors arriving in Aberdeen by road from the south. The opportunity for the creation of a top-class gateway development was not grasped, resulting in a visual and land-use planning own-goal of truly monumental proportions.

Bridge of Dee. The width constraints imposed by this bridge and detour it imposes on commercial vehicles is a sad reflection on the lack of political leadership over decades.

Airport. Obstruction of airport operating hours and runway lengthening. The former now lifted and the latter in course to happen. But far too late.
AWPR. This should have been built decades ago. Once built it will bring regional economic benefits throughout the whole of north-east Scotland.

Employment land. The lack of infrastructure support and total disconnect between strategic planning, and transport and public utilities provision, has resulted in a stalled employment land supply and disgraceful lack of choice for businesses. Land which has been zoned for many years cannot be developed due to a combination of infrastructure (non) availability; transport Scotland approvals and (now) the sheer magnitude of up-front costs which are un-fundable in the current financial climate.

Beach Leisure Development. This is an architecturally third-rate addition to the original beach facilities. Initiated by the council, it is a scheme which could have been an exemplar. Instead, the woeful lack of insistence of design standards delivered a third-rate offering which has ever since visually bighted the seafront and very poorly served the citizens of Aberdeen.

Union Square. It’s hard to imagine that this site started off as a transport interchange opportunity promoted by public funds and ended up being an isolated self-contained retail development which is not connected to the town’s main shopping provision, which it also undermines. It is undoubtedly a very attractive development in its own right but it has been filled with occupiers on no- or very low-rental deals at vast cost to the developer, and the other retailing parts of the City Centre have become depleted as a consequence. The continuing pressure on high street retailing from both the internet and general economic climate will make this new development a problematic addition to the economic well-being of the City Centre. A proper, covered connection with the Trinity Centre, covered pavements, and escalator steps from Union St down to The Green are all urgently required to integrate this development with Union Street.

The townsfolk of Aberdeen should reclaim the streets for themselves. The state of drunkenness in City Centre streets in the evenings is a very sad sight. The Licensing Scotland Act has comprehensive powers regarding rowdy behaviour and serving of drink to intoxicated people within licensed premises, but, sadly, there appears historically to have been no real political will to support the police in dealing with alcohol-fuelled anti-social behaviour in the City Centre generally. If this is how highly we think of ourselves, then there is no hope of a revitalised City Centre unless radical action is taken to deal with the issue. Here’s hoping that the recent Police led initiative will receive full support from all quarters and result in a zero tolerance attitude being adopted.

As a final thought, what I would really like to see is an elected mayor - a person of some ability – directly elected by the townsfolk on a very local agenda which has amenity, quality of life and prosperity at its heart, who, together with a small executive of capable lieutenants, drives through an agenda of change. This role should be apolitical.

 

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