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The unusual topography and the mature trees of the gardens greatly enhance the fine buildings on Union Terrace and Rosemount Viaduct.
This town scape would be diminished or even disfigured by the introduction of a flat 'piazza'.
I appreciate that the Gardens are seldom crowded but I doubt a 'piazza' would be any more popular. Aberdeen is not a Mediterranean city and it is fanciful to think can be. Existing smaller 'piazzas' i.e. the Castlegate are usually deserted.
Then there is the £100+ million cost at a time of public sector cuts.
If this goes ahead, like the 1960/70's schemes, it will be regretted in future decades.

I am the same age as Annie Lennox, yet as a youngster I remember the Gardens as being a place I would seldom venture. It was and still is a place where many of the city down and outs gather, along with druggies, muggers and bullies. As an adult I still dont venture there nor allow my children to go there. It is under utilised and an eyesore, and needs a fresh start. I am willing to bet, even when Annie occassionally returns to Aberdeen, she never visits Union Terrace Gardens. The plans I have seen look great, however... where is the funding coming from?????

You may want to correct the line about a "£13 million pound art gallery"… it isn't an art gallery but an arts centre open to all for viewing -and- participation, including a dance centre. Peacock VA are a local charity who work with a wide range of the community. A gallery is a small part of what they are.

Donnie if you never visit the gardens and tell your children not to go there how can you be sure it's full of muggers, druggies and bullies? I walk through there every so often, when I was a student we used to gather there when the weather was good and even now when I pass by I see people in the gardens (with children). I don't doubt there are dodgy people there (though probably not as many as you'll find on Union St) but the location is made out to be far worse than it is by people who admit not visiting.

See Lenathehyena's blog on this proposal

I have my own views on this development, however, rent a gob Annie Lennox couldn't get out of Aberdeen quickly enough and has consistently slagged it off over the years. Interventions like hers mean nothing. It is an issue for the people who live and work in Aberdeen, not for preaching pop stars.

I listened to Annie's interview with interest and subsequently searched out her Blog on Myspace.

I was not born in Aberdeen and moved here from Glasgow in 1991 so I have been here for more years than Annie lived in Aberdeen for also I still live here and will continue to do so for the rest of my life probably.

So to my point, Annie wants us all to live with how she remembers Aberdeen, she admits there needs to be progress but it would appear on her terms. Has she been in the Gardens recently? She would not go in there without her own little security force. Its a tip, full of junkies and Alchies. The merits of this project are open to debate of that there is no doubt. However I cannot believe someone who does not live in the City and has not done so for nearly 40 years can use her celebrity status to tell the people of Aberdeen how their City should look and feel when by her own admission she is very rarely here and when she is its a fleeting visit. I can see parallels with Ireland here and visiting tourists from America, I have relatives there and they were explaining how when the Americans come back over they are disappointed not to see old quaint cottages with thatched roofs and old stone walls whilst they live in their modern houses back in The States. They don't want Irish People to progress they want to have their own romantic notions of how Ireland should be then skip off back home to 50" plasmas and air conditioned houses after a fortnight.

Come and live in the City Annie, or the Area, I'm afraid being born and bred there but having moved away 40 years ago gives you little or no right to influence this debate in the way that you are doing so by using your status to highlight it. Your Blog encourages people to sign the petition, even people who openly admit they don't live there or have never been are signing it which frankly is plain wrong and I think you are acting irresponsibly in doing what you are doing.

You might be one of Aberdeen's famous daughters but frankly I can't see how you can speak for the City or its people. There is only one set of people who should be deciding on this and its the People of Aberdeen and the surrounding area who live, work, spend their time and earnings in the City, not Pop Stars who want us to live to their ideals and romantic notions.

Annie Lennox: "I occasionally come back up to Aberdeen".

What a relief, she's such a renound bastion of rational and realistic thought ;-)

From previous blog: (same subject, check it out)

In light of blog comments have re-examined both designs for UTG. The high minds at Peacock have not raised the gardens?!!! It does not adequately connect all the areas around it, the shopping malls etc, together then??? It's what we usually get when we can't quite move on, half baked.

No one designing a new gardens for that location, if it we imagine that the area were vacant, would NOT raise the site. It's crazy, makes it unusable. It might be bonny, but we are not designing a postcard. What construction project, in this lie of land, would stay down in it? I don't see many other such sunken projects.

It's pandering to the idealist romantics' pressure to "put the gardens' needs over those of its users".

The great boon of the site is that it connects everywhere. I don't want to have to go down a million steps to get to or from the Peacock plans to the other adjacent parts of the city. I don't want to ramble up and over hills when I'm having a day out shopping! It's green brigade madness. The inmates running the asylum - dreams alone securing their right.

This type of impractical garden in a house would prevent it from selling to families.

The truth is the romantics in an insular relationship with the existing UTG are forgetting love is blind - the obsessive aversion to moving a blade of grass unless its absolutely necessary. They think they are 'more sensitive', superior knowers to us. 'Heartfelt' giving them the moral edge. It's conceited poppycock. The Poppycock plans.

The railway line isn't even covered - it's like leaving your wiring on show!

It looks as if nothing has changed! So, what a waste of money! It's cringe-worthy.
As an end-user, I sincerely hope it this is never built. It would ruin Aberdeen.

Get Sir Ian in for the cause of common sense, now!


- IF Peacock does have better aesthetic skill, then keep the green spaces, landscape etc., but RAISE THEM UP!

Annie Lennox on Jules Holland's show last year was shaky voiced, and appeared quite delusional talking, as she skipped through her main back catalogue again, seemingly in a dream. This is unsurprising as she has been sheltered from normal reality in the fame bubble since (oops!) she got out of Aberdeeen ;-)

A £100+ million bill for the local council taxpayers, so that eye write doesn't have to walk up some steps or down a hill.
Aye, we need folk like him on the council.

11. rochcarlie

Better waste a not inconsiderable sum on making it......just the same!

- Because its grass????
- Common sense doesn't apply..........'cause (cause) it's nature.

And nobody will continue to use it. Yes, we need enlightened ideas like that!



PS All the mothers with toddlers and children, who go to town to shop, want more steps! Just to make it a total nightmare to get through the oh, so idyllic gardens! Yeah, right. Might I guess your sex?

But we don't want anything so irrelevant and concerning so 'few' to get in the way of a 'higher vision'.

#12 eye write
Why would mothers and toddlers going the shops, want or need, to go through the Gardens? There are roads with pavements that lead to the shops.
Have you looked at the plans, it's a roof on top of the gardens, with some parking below, that's all.

13. rochcarlie

The planned redevelopment links up these areas, because of where it is. Why would we seek to avoid doing that?

I'm not a supporter of Sir Ian's plans for UTG but I have to agree that the views of Annie Lennox are irrelevant given that these days she has such a remote connection with the city. I do however take issue with eye-write's need to make this all so personal by making the disparging comments he/she makes about her # 10. Eye-write does have of course have previous form using this tactic.

15. nedafo2

I think it explains why Annie Lennox has the views she has. Having no prior malaise towards her, that was my view after watching her discuss things with Jules Holland. I wasn't out to feel less kind towards her but her conduct was such that I noted it and did.

It is fair in a court to cast judgment on the character of the witnesses. And as Annie projects herself as a credible witness to the changes planned for Aberdeen (she is quite openly, vocally, self assured that we should listen to her), surely it is legitimate to scrutinise her soundness of mind, so as to ascertain whether or not (or how much), to attribute credence to her views. This is common place, and accepted, when we decide whether we believe, or agree with, or trust, politicians and other public figures. We wonder about their authority and integrity.

Surely you aren't suggesting we should take everything Annie Lennox offers as read, because she is famous? (Because someone agrees with her.)

I have made Sir Ian the subject of the same scrutiny and to date concluded that he is the more rational man (party). I don't think he has been underhand or cheated (gone outwith the rules or so played dirty). I think it's quite sensible that his plan is getting its consultation. (How can it not be subject to the same, or be subjected to different, rules?) I think the opposition is irritated, but that's a different matter, doesn't attribute "right" to them and "wrong" to him, because that's how they feel. It's crying "foul", in frustration. But it doesn't square (:-) that the most put out party has the best plans. That's subjective and bleeding heart - and cheating (and the opposite of good judgment).

Everyone, of course, can make their own mind up. You can disagree with me, but I wouldn't say you were using a "tactic".

If however you are using my "tactic" of questioning your opponents' quality of thinking (faculties), then should I question yours? As you are using a method that you have just decried - being "disparaging" and "personal" "Eye-write does of course have previous form in using this tactic" ;-)

eye-write - Here we go again. Jumping to conclusions. I have already staed that I consider AL's view as irrelevant. What more do I need to say. I did however find your comments about on her gratuitous.

So far as "tactics", what can I say. You acknowledge that others can disagree with you but then disparage those who do by labelling them as delusional, elitist, etc.

17. nedafo2

Yes, as you do (have done), I or anyone, can judge someone who disagrees with them, that they consider to hold a questionable view. If part of an argument is underwritten by an assumption of righteousness, then that can be queried. You are saying this isn't allowed? Then your judgment of me is a violation.
Is it shifting the focus of your argument away from scrutiny of your stance?

From last thread:

39. nedafo2

As Scotland is at the fore, in the world, of offshore and renewable energy (in no small part to the infrastructure being already there), it's the next golden goose, if we play our cards right this time :-)
There is at the very least another generation of oil and gas out there.
Scotland's got everything going for it. We could have it made.
To maybe 'groovy' myself up a bit, and quote Bob Dylan: ('you' meaning 'us')
"there's no one to beat you, no one to defeat you, 'cept the thoughts of yourself feeling ba-a-a-a-ad" ;-)

Yes, I really like Union Plaza - more please :-)

Maybe you are right to worry, as a priority, about the standard of architecture in Aberdeen. Maybe I am right to think you have nothing to worry about.
Readers will no doubt form their views, as it should be.

(I'm not really seeking to persuade. It's not for me to tell anyone what to think.
But if I say what I think, people can hopefully see a bit more of an argument.
I think everybody can think for themselves. So they should have, and can take, any argument put at them. It's inclusive, not exclusive. Am I elitist?)

PS I expressed some of what you include in your first paragraph as questions, and my other thoughts were based on your disapproval of what most people are happy to accept as buildings they are freely in favour of, and that you highlighted a need for a 'legacy'.

I did not notice any dire architectural straights in Aberdeen until you (strongly) mentioned it. And when I drive around Aberdeen I am pleased to see the new buildings.

13. rochcarlie
"#12 eye write
Why would mothers and toddlers going the shops, want or need, to go through the Gardens? There are roads with pavements that lead to the shops.
Have you looked at the plans, it's a roof on top of the gardens, with some parking below, that's all."

I think this is worth repeating!
So mothers, and pregnant ladies, toddlers and small children, anyone with a disability or physical impediment - their being able to use the space is to be precluded? That's a heck of a high price for romance.

They can use the much longer way round? Makes sense, why would we not seek to make their lives more difficult? They're difficult anyway, so sod them?

So the 'park' is not to be for everyone after all. Just you and your cronies-Jack. As I said, this is absurd devotion to a vision. Altruism for self serving reasons of well being. No way to make judgments for everyone in a city. Selfish.
Elitist.

Blind devotion as we must not move a tree, this moralising with mother nature on our side is exposed. It's as caring as Christians who would outdo dissenters. We can't say it's daft, as we aren't as "good".

Well, it's daft. To hail plans that exclude, or deter (as they would) whole swathes of society from the freedom to enjoy a city's public space. It's as dubious as the behaviour of the champagne socialist.

It's governing for the enlightened. We don't see what's wrong with not supporting impractical, unachievable ideal-world, in being irrational over the redevelopment of a public space, because it contains grass, then we're unenlightened. We're not trying hard enough (if only we could see).

What's best for the good of your heart, a 'beautiful picture' but impractical in reality, is not what's best for the city. Something residents will try a couple of times and then get put off by, an immense waste of money, is not good for any city, to be reminded of the folly every day.

That is lacking vision, vision to know you need courage to embrace a grand change. It's more scary, perhaps, but the prize is greater.

I do not see Ian Wood's plans as a 'roof and a car park'. That's just like sounding miffed at him having some. They are sympathetic to the surroundings and complete the city centre, enhancing all areas around forthwith. What a boost for the place! They're clever, take advantage of the appreciating the bigger picture.

UTG or the Peacock plans would be much better suited to a development a little further removed, where people could make a point of visiting, perhaps making a day of it - like with big gardens, and big garden centres, but making a fabulous job of it. What an asset to the city. As an integral connecting part of a city's centre, as now, it just doesn't work, it's inappropriately sunken. Sir Ian's plans are much more fit for purpose, and their not horrible, at all. He wasn't inspired by the globe's other 'horrible' city centres elsewhere.

Aesthetic arguments, concrete versus tree, are a cover here (misdirected, a red herring, just because the gardens are there), for Aberdeen saying, "I was too feirt to make the big change." You get out what you put in, so I hope Aberdeen doesn't regret not being brave enough to give our city centre what it needs.

(Find somewhere else that could sympathetically support the Peacock plans, or have some of them along side Sir Ian's - he has green space in plans, in this site connecting the city must come first - what a city we'll have ;-)

#19 eye write
If you were to examine the peacock plans, you would see that lift access to the Gardens is included. Access for all.
The Acsef project is a colossal white elephant. The City Council's contribution will be more than the entire council tax collected from its citizens for an entire year, £100 million. An average £1,300 for each taxpayer, not good value in these straitened times.

20. rochcarlie

Lift access!
So if I have lets say a pram, and I want to go up and down, I can choose to do that in how few locations, out of how many total square footage? I have to walk perhaps the length of the park to get to, and back to, the lifts! It's not quite being able to wander through is it. It's being a second class citizen actually. Thanks for the after thought.

Like in the Bon Accord Centre, if you want to go from the upper mall and in to John Lewis, and can't use steps, you must make the big round trip to one of the lifts, go down, then walk all the way back through the centre again to John Lewis's door. When what you actually want to do is go from straight from one bit to another.
It's really NOT how I would choose to navigate my city centre show piece.
Who would?

While it might be appropriate for a shopping mall, as they are made with several storeys. Who would consider adding this feature to a shared outdoor space? An open meeting place shouldn't impede access to it. They are for walking through???

Yet you would quite contentedly neglect this. How DID you come to think it would be OK? (Have you looked at the whole picture?) It's not facing reality, and compromising ludicrously, to appease for nostalgia - which will achieve the embarrassing. Please.

Regardless of how much money is talked about, a pound would be too much if such a large chunk of the locals got nothing out of it. But maybe it's their fault for putting their own selfish practical necessities before wonder.

No. It's blatantly and bloodymindedly trying to fit the square peg of UTG into the round hole of the city centre of Aberdeen - because it is already there and some allow sentiment, not reason, to rule.
But it's to the detriment of Aberdeen.

#21 eye write
'Regardless of how much money is talked about, a pound would be too much if such a large chunk of the locals got nothing out of it.'
Right, eye write, a pound would be too much to pay, for this botched cosmetic exercise. All us 'chunk of locals' will get is another 'eye' sore, to join St Nicholas House and other 'iconic' modern developments.

22. rochcarlie

Not sure any city centre plans were based on St Nicholas House? That's a bit of a stretch! And possibly encapsulates your negative bias? (Anything 'iconic' and 'modern' means 'bad'? You're free to feel that. I prefer to look at each proposal on a case by case basis.)

Yes, I think Peacock's 'pretty picture' is an exercise in botched cosmetic folly. It's like buying the fancy juicer we thought would elevate our life and make us a better person, but that sits unused in a cupboard because really it's such a pain to use and clean etc. (How much more is maintenance of this terraced grandeur going to cost?)

Ian Wood's plans aren't botched. They work. They look good. They appeal.

If they were here now, would we be kicking ourselves because we didn't go for something dug down (with some lifts)? Even if you don't like them, Wood's plans aren't of lower quality.

But it's not good enough for us? Amazing.

Are we in danger of being like the daughter who wants the 'cool' shoes even though they hurt her feet?

I think Sir Ian's plans look super. Most folk when presented with them are very enthusiastic. I've not met anyone who looked down their nose at them! Granted, I think his team could do with a good 3D image online somewhere to show them off better, like when you're buying shoes or furniture online. But that's PR.

But it's fair that we can have a difference of opinion over taste. But I don't think taste should compromise functionality. That's abandoning reason :-)