Civic follies
I. Aberdeen

Photograph by Douglas Marr

News from the dunghill

Douglas Marr

In the north-east money doesn't just talk, it shouts. It was Paul Theroux who famously suggested 'the average Aberdonian is someone who would gladly pick a halfpenny out of a dunghill with his teeth'. As an Aberdeen loon I was firmly of the opinion that our reputation for being careful is something that we nurture as a self-deprecatory joke. Now I'm not so sure. The recent actions of a vocal, but influential, minority have provided substance to Theroux's caricature.
     The background is Sir Ian Wood's generous but misguided offer to put £50 million of his own money towards the cost of a scheme to raise and concrete over the unique Victorian splendour of Aberdeen's Union Terrace Gardens. The motivation behind Sir Ian's offer is not clear. Perhaps, like all of us on the home straight to three score and ten, he feels the hand of mortality resting increasingly heavily on his shoulder. Wood's Folly, perhaps with a statue of the great man at its heart, gazing wistfully in the direction of the oilfields of the North Sea, would be an enduring memorial to his vision and entrepreneurship.
     What is more clear is that Aberdeen's self-styled 'business community' has aligned itself with Wood's blurred vision for its own commercial benefit, regardless of the destruction of one of the city’s last remaining unique features. Teeth are being bared to extract the halfpenny from the dunghill. They are determined that nothing will stand in their way – least of all democracy, competing proposals and the wishes of local people.
    
Sir Ian has repeatedly said that he will take his ball and go home if the people of Aberdeen reject his concept of a 'civic square'. His supporters, the Woodentops, even arranged a lengthy and biased consultation, presumably to demonstrate the overwhelming local support for the proposal. One can imagine their chagrin when the ingrates rejected Sir Ian's vision and money. How dare they!
     Unfortunately Wood was not as good as his word. His supporters claim that the majority against, a mere 55%, is 'inconclusive'. In all probability these are the very same people who would have been doing cartwheels down Union Street had David Cameron picked up that percentage in the general election. Having been sent homewards to think again, the Woodentops decided it was too important an issue to allow the people to decide, especially as they had come up with the wrong answer. Instead it would be up to the local council.
     At this point that opponents of the scheme began to feel vaguely uneasy. Aberdeen City Council has a Liberal Democrat-dominated coalition of breath-taking ineptitude. Its courage and resolve, when faced with representations from 50 'leading business figures', was always going to be questionable. The local press, mindful of its advertising revenues, has long since abandoned any pretence of balance or objectivity. Wavering councillors doubtless remembered the campaign of vilification waged against the handful of their Aberdeenshire counterparts brave enough to vote against Donald Trump's plan to build an exclusive golf club on a site of special scientific interest.
     The more optimistic amongst us thought that a near bankrupt council, at a time of national and local financial retrenchment, could not possibly commit to a scheme with a funding black hole of at least £90 million. But we had chosen to forget that this is the same council which withdraws funding from workplaces and centres for the blind, disabled and deaf while spending around £70 million on palatial new headquarters.

The rest, as they say, is history. The proposal was approved on the casting vote of the Lord Provost. At the end of the day everyone loses. The financial black hole and the, as yet unidentified, engineering challenges make it extremely unlikely that Wood's vision or folly will ever be realised. The council now has the perfect excuse, for years to come, to allow the gardens to deteriorate further. The alternative proposal for the revitalisation of the gardens, including a centre for the visual arts, looks certain to fall, despite having full planning permission and nearly all the necessary funding.
     Above all, democracy and the ordinary people have lost. It is difficult to recall anything in recent times that has so divided a major city and generated such passion. However the issue runs much deeper. The fight for the gardens serves as a metaphor for who really counts in modern Scotland. Is it any wonder that more and more people despair of the political process?
     The project's supporters, and above all the business community, have expressed their contempt for the city, its people and its heritage. The combination of a handful of strong-minded millionaires and weak-willed councillors has prevailed. Their breath-taking arrogance that they know best is coming within a hairsbreadth of depriving Aberdeen of a feature that most other cities would die for. Come back Paul Theroux, all is forgiven.

[click here] for Douglas Marr's photographs of the gardens

Douglas Marr CBE is a former headteacher