Bridge of Don population to double in Silicon Valley plan

Landowners propose multibillion-pound scheme for suburb

By Calum Ross

Published:

An Aberdeen suburb could be transformed into a new town the size of Perth under multibillion-pound plans, the Press and Journal can reveal today.

A group of north-east landowners want to double the population of Bridge of Don and anchor the global renewable-energy industry in a new “Silicon Valley of the north”.

Petrol would be banned from fuel stations in favour of low-pollution alternatives as the scheme sets out to create an environmentally-friendly business quarter.

This would help kick-start ambitious plans for the so-called Energetica corridor between Aberdeen and Peterhead.

As many as 13,000 homes would be built over the next two decades to form the new community, which would occupy almost the entire area north of the River Don and south of the city’s proposed western bypass, bounded by Dyce in the west.

A bus system powered by hydrogen or electricity would be created to link the new town centre with Aberdeen Airport, Dyce Station and the city’s exhibition centre. It would then run across the proposed third Don crossing to Old Aberdeen and its university.

The plan includes about 500 acres of industrial development land, as well as new homes that would increase Bridge of Don’s population from about 22,000 to 45,000 – about the size of Perth.

The masterplan, which could represent several billion pounds of investment, was lodged with Aberdeen City Council yesterday by planning consultancy Halliday Fraser Munro.

Asked if there had been any similar project in the north of Scotland, the firm’s planning director, Bob Reid, said: “There has been nothing like this at all.

“I suppose there has been the expansion that has taken place at Portlethen, Banchory and Ellon over the last 20 years. It’s of that kind of order but more focused.”

A nature reserve, secondary school, three primaries, a town centre, train station and sports and community facilities are all included in the plans, which aim to give Bridge of Don a civic heart.

“People have described Bridge of Don as one of the biggest suburbs in Europe,” Mr Reid said.

“What we wanted to do with this is try and put back into Bridge of Don all that it doesn’t have.

“We think that the right thing to do here is to provide a town centre with a high street, shops, optician, a dentist – all the things you would ordinarily expect to see in a town centre.”

New roads would also be built, including one dubbed Energetica Boulevard, linking Aberdeen Airport to the Murcar roundabout on the A90 Aberdeen-Peterhead road.

“What we have done, broadly speaking, is ask how we can link up business development that will need to take place at Murcar with business development at the airport,” Mr Reid said.

“We see CO emission reduction as driving not only the design framework but also the economic rational.

“With this masterplan, we think we can deliver the whole of the southern end of the Energetica project.

“It would be a Silicon Valley of the north.”

Despite the scale of the plans, Mr Reid was confident the scheme could be delivered by 2030, with work possibly beginning within a year.

“This group of landowners own a significant amount of land up there and we have little doubt that the masterplan is capable of being built,” he said.

The scheme follows the publication by Aberdeen City Council of bids put forward by developers for key land sites to be considered for inclusion in the next local development plan.

It seeks to pull together and incorporate proposals for the north of Aberdeen, including a bid for 7,000 homes at Whitestripes, and make huge inroads into ambitious structure plan targets that envisage building 36,000 homes in the city over the next two decades.

Public consultation on the masterplan gets under way on Monday night, after the proposal is published.

It would have to be approved by Aberdeen City Council before developers were asked to deliver the vision.