Give It Up

"Back my vision for the city or lose £50m, Sir Ian warns" read the headline from March 14th Press and Journal announcing the results of the Public Consultation into his own plan, majority funded by us, the taxpayer, The City Square Project. Despite the results of the consultation coming back with an astounding 55% against, a majority of 11%, Sir Ian still sees this as “marginally negative” and not enough for him to take to the outcome of the Public Consultation, which has been payrolled to the tune of around £300,000 by the same Public. Adding to the pressure, ACSEF Chair Tom Smith warned that “Rejection of this £140million investment will damage Aberdeen city’s reputation.”

Speaking to the BBC, Wood claimed that "I will be disappointed if Aberdeen City Council decide in their wisdom not to proceed with the transformational scheme" going on to explain his scheme as "The vision is to maximise the attractiveness of our city to win the new energy opportunities and become a world energy city. My offer of funds was to help achieve that, not to spruce up our city centre." Wood's statement, while consciously contradicting itself, again lacks any evidence which would show how or why capping off the Denburn Valley would secure long-term "jobs and prosperity" or how not building the square would lead us to certain doom.

Everyone's favourite benevolent Knight even goes so far as to try and suggest that "What is referred to as 'my vision' is in fact the vision, aspiration and hopes of many, many Aberdonians for the future economic and civic wellbeing of our city and region as North Sea oil winds down," a statement which inspired boos and jeering when he made the same claims at the Labour-organised public debate, and one that certainly does not wash in the face of many, many Aberdonians voting against the scheme in the consultation.

Sir Ian uses the article to backtrack on his previous promises, stating "My funds offer, spelt out in November 2008, was clearly conditional on achieving transformational change, and on Aberdeen City Council and the people of Aberdeen supporting the vision," however, tracing back to November 2008, Sir Ian said "I am only prepared to provide up to £50 million if it has strong support from the people of Aberdeen and the North-east of Scotland," no mention whatsoever of the Aberdeen City Council. An ACSEF spokeswoman reiterated this during the consultation period "If the public does not support this project then he will withdraw his offer of £50million and it will not go ahead," and Wood, going as far as to goad the public by saying "If the citizens of Aberdeen decide they don’t want this city square then I’ll just finish up a miserable old Aberdonian who’s £50million better off." and reiterated the point himself at the beginning of the consultation by saying "I have always said that if the public does not support this vision then my offer of funding will be withdrawn."

Of course, now that the public has not backed his Scheme, Uncle Ian has decided that the decision must now be down to ACC as "This is clearly the most valid exercise of the democratic process.” It seems that Wood is now invalidating ACSEF's "robust and comprehensive" Consultation, and indeed the views of the people of Aberdeen and the fundemental keystone of democracy: Majority rule.

Quick in their attempt to influence this "valid excercise," fifty members of Aberdeen's business community put their signatures to a letter ACC Chief Executive, Sue Bruce, asking for "some reassurance from our city council that this opportunity will not be denied simply due to misunderstanding of the project among the public and an inability to appreciate the very real impact that high quality civic amenities and an excellent city centre can have on the regional economy.

"It is absolutely essential that the council supports this project to enable it to progress to the next stage – an international design competition." However, Labour secretary Willie Young was quick to hit back by stating “What strikes me as remarkable about the letters from Oil and Gas UK and the 50 business people in Aberdeen is that each and every one of them is happy to write to the chief executive pleading for the city square development yet it seems that not one of them is prepared to put their money where their pen is."

However despite none of the fifty signatories making any financial contribution to the project, a report released by the Chief Executive and Corporate Management Team recommended "that members approve Sir Ian Wood’s offer of £50m based on ACSEF proposals, to got to the next steps in the process" (page 18), aligning with ACSEF and the "business community" rather than the wishes of the majority citizens who took part in the Public Consultation. The recommendation is on the condition that "That the costs of an international design competition be met up to 50% by Sir Ian Wood up to a maximum of £400,000, with the balance of the resource required to be met by the private sector through ACSEF."

A phonecall from Scottish Enterprise investigating the options for an "International Design Competition" raised serious issues from the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, with their secretary, Neil Baxter stating that "We are profoundly concerned that a premature or inappropriate competition would simply abuse participants who inevitably will put significantly greater resources into any competitive process than would be covered by any competition fee on offer." The letter also expresses the RIAS's reservations about the focus of the supposed competion on securing an "international" architect with Mr Baxter, speaking on BBC Scotland's Newsdrive describing this as "using public relations of the most crass kind to steamroller through a mega-proposal."

Furthering concerns over the competition, the RIAS also expressed siginificant reservations concerning the much-quoted £140 Million cost: "“Considering that, in recent years, buildings of comparable scale in Aberdeen and elsewhere i on straightforward urban sites have cost twice the quoted budget figure for this particularly problematic and challenging site, we would be concerned about launching a competition based on such a questionable budget.” Further fears were raised about the actual costs of the project, stemming from an appraisal into Tax Increment Financing compiled by economic assessors, PriceWaterhouseCooper in which it is estimated that "at an interest rate of 3%, the common rate local authorities borrow at, the £70m loan would cost £150m over 25 years."

The report also states that "under each of the four Scenarios there is an early years interest gap where the project revenues are insufficient to meet the interest payments due. For the purposes of our modelling exercise we have assumed that this interest is ‘rolled up’ into the existing debt and paid off over time. In reality the prudential borrowing framework does not allow for interest to be rolled up in this way and future consideration will therefore have to be given to how this early years interest gap is covered." (Page 88) This means that even the TIF funding will be unable to actually pay back the early interest required to pay for the square. Even the very concept of Tax Increment Financing, which is a pilot scheme yet to be trialed in the UK has uncertainty surrounding it, in November 2009 Edinburgh submitted a bid for a TIF area to the Scottish Government for the development of the Forth Ports in Leith, is also uncertain as even if the bid is approved by Scottish Government there is a chance that the proposals could be blocked by the Treasury. Considering that similar funding strategies for financing the new Forth Road crossing had been rejected by westminster "We will work with the Scottish Government, but their particular scheme where they were asking to borrow money from budgets which are yet to be allocated over an extremely long period – that’s something that we simply don’t do" there is a high chance that the TIF system, which ACSEF have provided as the backbone for securing the £70 Million shortfall (after Sir Ian and an entirely speculative private investment figure of £20 Million), may not float.

Meanwhile Peacock Visual Arts and the Scottish Arts Council have spoken out about apparent ommissions from the Chief Executive's report. Peacock Director, Lindsay Gordon claimed that “It appears that all of Sir Ian's parameters for the city square remain intact and that the council is being asked to vote in favour of a concept that the people clearly rejected in the public consultation,” going on to say that “The paper takes no account of Peacock's board’s position, taken after long and careful consideration, that we cannot be part of the city square project.” while SAC Co-director has written to Sue Bruce clarifying that “If I am interpreting your recommendations correctly, your first suggests that any consortium progressing the city square project would have access to the Scottish Arts Council’s investment. I’m afraid that’s incorrect.” going further "It would be unrealistic to expect our current financial commitment to be held indefinitely and transferred to an as yet undetermined project. Unless of course it is the intention that Peacock's current plans become an initial phase of redevelopment and can be delivered quickly."

As this will by my last post before the crucial decision tomorrow, it wouldn't be fair not to pass comment on our old friend ACSEF chair, Tom Smith, who was asked a series of questions in the Sunday Herald. His replies further the convoluted and contradictory messages he has provided to the media for the past four months, even going as far to say "we [ACSEF] can take pride in our integrity and professionalism in the face of a vociferous and not always factual opposition, unjust criticism and unfortunately, on occasions, personal attacks" despite the fact that the majority of "not always factual" information came from the self-same documents ACSEF have produced and are using for a basis for the supposed feasibility of their project. Further to the previously mentioned letter from the 50 business leaders, signed by Tom Smith, he also states in the interview that "It would damage our reputation to be seen to reject a £140 million investment in our city." This comment is alarming, as the head of an Economic Forum with a remit "for advising on national, regional and local economic development from a regional perspective" who is unable to tell the difference between a £50 Million investment and a £140 Million investment. For there is not £140 million on the table, only Wood's £50m and a new "anonymous city businessman reportedly offered £5million towards the cost of the city square." Add this to Tom's sound economic arguments for the City Square, which amount to comparing it to Aberdeen FC signing Ronaldo (even though for The Dons to achieve such an accolade would surely bankrupt them) and admitting that the project was a "Leap of Faith", would you let this man champion supposed economic development of the region?

Aberdeen City Council's elected members will meet at 10:30 tomorrow, 19th May at Aberdeen Town House. While the Council's Labour Group of 10 Councillors have declared that "unless there is some tremendous financial thing happens between now and Wednesday, we feel it would be wrong to kill off the Peacock proposal at this time when there is so little real meat in the Union Square development" and voting against the City Square, the 31 remaining Councillors have a free vote. Only time can tell exactly what way it will go, but what began as a little case of A Garden, an Art Centre and a Civic Plaza has now become an overriding question of the validity of democracy in the North East.

We can only hope that our elected councilors will do the right thing and stand by the wishes of their constituent rather than a vociferous minority of business leaders.