The battle over a piece of land earmarked for Aberdeen's Energy Transition Zone could be heading to the Court of Session.
An area of St Fittick’s Park in Torry has been earmarked for the crucial transition project, which aims to make Aberdeen one of the most attractive places in the world to invest in low carbon and emerging technologies, such as offshore wind and hydrogen.
And despite Labour making an 11th-hour bid to halt the lease of the land, councillors agreed to move forward and explore the deal at a crunch vote yesterday.
However, last night the Govan Law Centre - the firm which supported campaigners fighting to halt the closure of libraries and pools in the city - announced that they may now take on the St Fittick's case.
The firm said it is looking at potentially raising urgent proceedings for a judicial review of the council's decision.
"Govan Law Centre has accepted instructions to look at the possibility of raising urgent proceedings for judicial review in the Court of Session of Aberdeen City Council’s decision(s) and proposals to develop St. Fittick’s Park in Aberdeen for commercial purposes," the firm said in a tweet last night.
ETZ Ltd, the not-for-profit firm pushing development, say the land's location near the new £420million South Harbour is vital to securing work in offshore wind.
There are hopes thousands of north-east jobs will be secured by establishing the ETZ as the Aberdeen economy moves past reliance on oil and gas.
Speaking in the P&J last week, ETZ chief executive Maggie McGinlay said the organisation was in advanced talks with potential inward investors keen to locate in Aberdeen.
“While we fully appreciate concerns about utilising any of the land at St Fittick’s, the ability to connect land with port assets, and transport large components to and from quayside, is a fundamental requirement so we can catalyse the further investment required to ensure Aberdeen is positioned to capitalise on the vast opportunities provided by green energies, particularly offshore wind," she said.
“Indeed, we are in advanced discussions with a number of companies keen, subject to planning, to locate on the site for these very reasons.
“We urge councillors, who have previously backed the local development plan of which the council allocated land at St Fittick’s was included, to consider carefully the loss of millions of pounds of investment and hundreds of jobs that not developing this land would entail.”
Labour was running the council when the proposals were included in the draft local development plan in March 2020 - and despite local opposition, the site was confirmed in the final local development plan last December.