Council made ‘strenuous efforts’ to keep grants

The deputy leader of Aberdeen City Council, which has been told to return £1.2million of regeneration grants to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, insisted last night that “strenuous” efforts were made to retain the money.

Kevin Stewart spoke out after the Press and Journal revealed that the money was forfeited because no agreement could be reached on what projects it should be spent on.

The move came after it became apparent that the council would fail to meet a March 31 deadline set by Scottish Enterprise, which allocated the money – part of a £2million grant to build a contemporary arts centre in Union Terrace Gardens.

Mr Stewart, the council’s finance convener, said: “The city council made strenuous efforts to retain the Scottish Enterprise money for cultural projects. In fact, we drew up seven separate proposals — each of them costed and each presented to Scottish Enterprise for consideration.

“We had every faith that the proposals we put forward were worthy of funding from Scottish Enterprise, met the appropriate criteria, and would have contributed to the cultural life of the city.”

Some £400,000 of the £2million funding package had already been spent on preparatory work before the Peacock Visual Arts project for the contemporary arts centre was abandoned on May 19 after councillors voted to accept the principle of Sir Ian Wood’s rival vision for Union Terrace Gardens. Scottish Enterprise gave the council permission to use £375,000 of the grant for Sir Ian’s scheme.

Maggie McGinlay, director of the Aberdeen city and shire branch of Scottish Enterprise said: “With the Peacock Visual Arts Centre project no longer going ahead, Scottish Enterprise was keen to explore whether the money allocated to that project could be used to support another transformational cultural project in Aberdeen that would deliver similar outcomes within the March 31 timescale.

“We have therefore been in discussion with the council regarding the proposed extension to Aberdeen Art Gallery and these discussions are ongoing.”