Council prepared to go it alone in £20m Aberdeen centre plan
Tuesday 22 OcTOber 2013 ABERDEEN City Council’s Labour-led administration yesterday announced plans to invest £20 million of council taxpayers’ money to finally “kick-start” the transformation of the Union Terrace Gardens.
And they vowed to go ahead with a scheme to regenerate the sunken Victorian park with or without the £50m offer tabled by oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood.
Last week Sir Ian told the council he would be willing to work with them on a revised scheme in which the “main visual features” of the Victorian gardens could be maintained – provided the design concept was truly transformational.
But yesterday, the administration announced it was determined to bring forward fresh plans for a council-led scheme within six months, using proposals unveiled in August by local architect John Halliday, to redesign the park as the basis for the long-awaited regeneration.
Councillor Willie Young, the local authority’s finance convener, said: “To kick-start the redevelopment of Union Terrace Gardens, along the lines of the Halliday proposal, the council are going to find £20m.
“And if we actually want to be the ones who move it forward, we need to show the public and private sector that we are serious about regeneration.”
He added: “Sir Ian has said he is interested in putting in £50m. But what we are also saying to the private sector is we are going to do something – regardless of whether Sir Ian puts his money in or not.”
Mr Young said the proposals would form a key part of the council’s plans for the regenera- tion to be unveiled at the end of the month.
The council is planning to establish a regeneration board to advance the proposals. Mr Young added that the council was talking to “various people” and that Sir Ian should “come on board if he is really serious about regeneration”.
The proposals unveiled by Halliday would see much of the Victorian gardens retained. The Denburn dual carriageway and Aberdeen to Inverness rail line would be covered to allow the construction of a new civic square with a new station entrance on Union Bridge.
Sir Ian indicated he would be willing to invest in a proposal, provided the council were amenable to looking at amending the Halliday plan to “cover the roadway and railway and then raise the gardens significantly to the level of the existing arches on the west side, and to the level of the raised decking over the roadway and railway and Belmont Street, on the east, which would make them accessible and permeable from the adjacent streets.”