City cannot afford £2m demolition, says leader

Reader's Comments

Can someone just explain why demolition costs shouldn’t come out of the ‘under-budget savings’ associated with the Marischal College rebuild, given that most people thought getting rid of St Nicks was the icing on the cake in spending so much money relocating council staff?
Hoots Min
Report this comment

Who is for a Wood Civic centre here. That would give us two beautiful spots in aberdeen the other being Union terrace gardens.
Donald McPherson
Report this comment

Oh dear, trouble in paradise!
Hall Harper
Report this comment

If they can't afford £2 million for this, how can they possibly afford tens of millions for the AWPR?
Robin Harwell
Report this comment

Or the potential five million for UTG Robin. Oops - they HAVE spent half a million so far and they haven't even started their car park yet !
Ron Campbell
Report this comment

Hoots Min, it's Scottish Government accounting rules that don't allow the underworld to be used.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Donald Macpherson, nice idea, but Ian Wood has the same freedom to spend his own money (after tax) as the rest of us do.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Robin Harwell, the AWPR money is already factored into the budgets. Cllr McCaig's point is that as yet, this £2m isn't.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Ron Campbell, the Council simply isn't putting money into UTG, and the continual repetition of such falsehoods by some in the anti-development camp is not doing the argument any good.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Kate Dean had stated that St Nicholas House would be sold for £20m to help pay for Marischal College. Makes you wonder if Marischal should have another 20 million added to the overall cost if real world accounting practises were in place.
Alan Craigie
Report this comment

With respect Neil: The "gifting" of Common Good Lands to private developers is simply immoral and should not be contemplated at any cost. This prime, city centre site is worth millions. Both you and the "developers" are well aware of that.
Ron Campbell
Report this comment

It's quite a difficult job leading the Council. Back in the last Council, when Social Care budgets were soaring, the opposition SNP & Lab got the support of 2 administration Cllrs, and forced through an additional £1M spend on a Cyrenians project that wasn't budgeted for. In the current Council, when the LibDems were leading, the SNP worked with Labour, against officer advice and without budgets, to keep open every secondary school, and to pay the most expensive type of redundancy. It is the whole Council that takes this decision, and it is sovereign. LibDem Leaders had to accept such defeats, and do the Council's bidding, so will Cllr McCaig. I'm not sure yet if Cllr McCaig has realised that in his new job he is the Leader of the whole Council, and not just the SNP.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Ron Campbell, there you go again. UTG is not, and never will be development land. The restrictions are such that amenity must be retained, and any commercial activity will be required to fund that amenity. My personal opinion is that the conditions are so restrictive that the project is unlikely to be affordable, which is why Ian Wood and others are putting in £55m up front. Only when we have a final design, and a business plan will we know the real answer to that. Why are opponents of the scheme so afraid to see this data gathered (now at Sir Ian's cost)?
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Neil im pretty sure you came on here a couple of weeks ago saying that it took 2 minutes in a meeting for the council to find the £2m required for the demolition !!.
Keith Pyper
Report this comment

Alan Craigie, once commercial sensitivities are passed, (to protect the tax payers interests) the whole accounting will be published for all to see. At present the majority of information has been selectively leaked by opponents of Mariscal, to give the gullible a particular view. Snippets of data, outwith context, can never tell the whole story. I've said on here before that I want that full data public, and will be making every effort for it to be so, as soon as possible. What I won't do, is leak stuff that might cost the tax-payer money in the meantime, just for political gain.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

I sincerely hope your right Neil (and I don't doubt your sincerity). But, at the end of the day, investors do not invest in dead ducks with no return. Given the structure is to be, in the main, concrete based, with a finite lifespan, who picks up the tab for repair or rebuilding, which is inevitable?
Ron Campbell
Report this comment

Keith Pyper, yes I did, and understand that the mechanism was recorded in the minute. I'm afraid Cllr McCaig is still pushing the SNP line, instead of the Council's. As I said, it's not easy being Council Leader, especially when many Cllrs have no Whip in place, unlike the explicit whip for Labour, or implicit, as with the SNP.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Aslong as Party stances can be blaimed for poor decisions then surely this is the most protected job going. I personally think the Leader should be impartial. Neil you don't happen to know what savings were made when they outsourced the IT Dept at the City Council ??
Keith Pyper
Report this comment

TEAR DOWN THIS HORRIBLE EYESORE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Andy Johnston
Report this comment

TEAR DOWN THIS HORRIBLE EYESORE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Andy Johnston
Report this comment

Hi Keith, when my partner became Council Leader, there was a fear that he would be too political, but I believe he did it very impartially. Some in my own party think he wasn't party political enough! The SNP are a very tight knit group, and I dont think Cllr McCaig is used to not getting his own way on everything, but he is a very bright and able young man, and if he can realise that just because the SNP's view doesn't always prevail, it's not the end of the world, he'll do fine.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Keith, any savings on IT and other outsourcing will be already factored in. I'm always sceptical about outsourcing delivering cash savings, but losing functionality, but the Council's IT was neither functional, nor cheap! Outsourcing is not a panacea, but all in-house has it's problems too. A healthy mix is what I've always striven for, but you outsource some services, and your opponents will say you want to outsource everything! Such is the quality of political debate of late.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Neil. How much is factored in? I bet it's nothing like the £75 million or so which will be needed if it's ever built?
Robin Harwell
Report this comment

Robin Harwell, no Council cash is or will be factored in for UTG. The backers know this, and their plans will have to take account if it.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

“Hoots Min, it's Scottish Government accounting rules that don't allow the underworld to be used.” I take it you didn’t mean ‘underworld’ - I didn’t reckon things were that desperate at the council! What I still don’t understand, you see, is what happens to these savings. The public was certainly given the impression that the move to Marischal and subsequently obliterating St Nicks was part and parcel of one project. A projected price tag of £43m became £80m, so that amount must have been ‘factored into budgets’, to use your own phrase. Now we’re told the final bill is considerably less, so where is this balance? What IS it being used for?
Hoots Min
Report this comment

Hoots Min, the net cost was estimated at £43m, the £80m was the budget for the build cost of Marischal, which is coming in about £60m. Some capital receipts may be less than anticipated, and we forwent a capital receipt for Linksfield Academy to build the £50m pool. The value if St Nix will vary enormously, depending on whether you allow the current tower to be rebuilt or not, and what other restrictions you put on the site. You also have to factor in running costs, and commercially sensitive values for the sale of other vacated buildings such as Summerfield Academy. The actual net cost to the Council's revenue budget, which is essentially the most important and most restricted, is going to be about £1m per year. The Council's total annual net revenue spend, excluding Housing, is about £450m.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Oops, the dangers of auto correct. That should be 50m pool, Council contribution £8m
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Oops again, Summerhill! And I believe it's Morrisons rather than Summerfield who are hoping to develop it.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Neil- Re:UTG. "Never be development land", followed by "any commercial activity"? An extension to the Trinty Centre car park, a transport hub, underground walkways connecting the shopping malls, and possibly a conference centre, built under any new "amenity" as you refer it, on the actual existant, and it's still not development land. You've lost me there I'm afraid. Please correct me if I've misread your comment.
harvey freshwater
Report this comment

Ughhh tear it down already .
Roger Davies
Report this comment

Well it's not going to be Waitrose for starters.
harvey freshwater
Report this comment

Harvey, the figures quoted on here for the value if the area by anti UTG folk, are based on the highest unrestricted value a piece if City centre land could be worth. I'm just trying to add some balance. The area, if developed at all, which I doubt, will always effectively have a zero development value, which, again, nothing would be possible without the pump funding of £55m.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

City can't afford £2M to knock down st Nics. So how in heavens name can the council take the slightest risk in borrowing £70M for the TIF funding of the UTG development? And yes Neil, ACC will be left holding the baby if TIF doesn't work. Either that or they will sell out at fire sale prices for commercial development
mike shepherd
Report this comment

VOTE MONOLITH A VOTE FOR MONOLITH IS A VOTE FOR JOBS AND A SECURE FUTURE FOR ABERDEEN! Aberdeen needs an iconic monolith to secure its economic and cultural future. Please write to your councillors, MPs, MSPs and everyone else you can think of and ask them to VOTE MONOLITH!
Craig Adams
Report this comment

And the headline you never saw but should have. CITY GARDEN DESIGNS INCLUDE A CONFERENCE CENTRE. You are not going to like this Neil, but I'm going to tell all those lovely people out there about the £28m debt owed to the council by the AECC. If that baby lands on the council budget, they will be calling Aberdeen the Athens of the North ...
mike shepherd
Report this comment

Sorry, two points I missed, underworld should have been underspend. Secondly, it was always the intention at the outset to demolish St. Nix, which is why my group could not support the SNP line on pricing it's retention. If we had list the vote we would have had to live with the decision, but in a quite radical but welcome turnaround, we won the support of Labour. They may well have being playing politics to try to destabilise the SNP/LibDem coalition, but who am I to speculate. Maybe they just saw sense in supporting Council long term policy? Doubt we'll ever know, but as a bit of a radical myself, I like the uncertainty;-)
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Welcome to the debate Mike. Nice to see that after receiving a several hundred word piece from me on the realities of the AECC when compared to the other Scottish centres, you still see fit to try to use commonly held mid-conceptions, if it can in any way be used to advance your cause. Bring on a conference centre, if that is the case, and let it be run by the mist cost effective Conference centre team in Scotlan, if not the UK! The debt, after 25 years of operation, is less than a third of what the Scottish Government and Edinburgh Council put into Edinburgh's centre last year! But lets's not dwell on this, if it means we can run down ourselves whilst our central belt buddies spend our area's wealth.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Apologies Neil, but I'm just fed up to the back teeth with all the rubbish we've been told and the abuse anybody who questions this gets. Some of our members went to the exhibition yesterday. I couldn't go as I wasn't in town. They reported back that two of the designs had extensive car parking, two had office developments along Belmont Street. One of the designs shown on the STV web site is clearly labelled conference centre. You are well aware of all the dogs abuse that I got when I wrote an open letter saying that councillors have lost control. Well you have. The businessmen in the project have made decisions about what is going into the city centre not councillors. And a conference centre is included. No democratic debate about the implications of Aberdeen having two conference centres, they decided. You guys still haven't seen the final design brief yet, have you?
mike shepherd
Report this comment

For the record, annual subsidy requirement of AECC when I was appointed Chairman, £2.5m, at the point I persuaded a non-political Chairperson to take on the role, £1.5m. A saving of £1m per year, and at no loss to the economic benefit to the region. Shame about Labour's hotel project never coming to fruition, but miracles are difficult to deliver.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Hi Mike, I'm on holiday, so not having seen the detailed designs, except Internet versions, I'm not commenting on them individually. I go back to my first meeting with you. I joined Cllr Davie Clyne in the 1980s to oppose the raising of the gardens, and the say no to Next development. I saw him lose his voting power by not keeping an open mind. I can safely repeat that I have not yet seen a plan that would persuade me to vote to lose the current garden, but if the criteria of design and cost work out, I could not rule it out. My fear, as I honestly told you then, was that the argument is there to be lost. If you have had personal grief over you opinions, I can tell you now that it will be nothing compared to what my partner has received because he had the audacity to stand up for his belief which is different from ours. But then again, allegations, threats, and personal abuse is apparently what anyone who us elected is supposed to accept. Your opponents can tell provable lies, and the Standards Commission will call it the 'rough and tumble of politics'. Welcome to our world Mike.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Mike, the Council has not lost control, it has simply delegated it to people it believes are more able to deliver the wishes of the Council, than the Council itself. It can stop this whenever it wishes, if our doubts about the project prove to be true. There will be a point of no return, but we're no where near that yet. When you are shouting that the Council has lost control, when it clearly hasn't taken that decision yet, are you surprised that some of your statements are also open to misinterpretation?
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Go on tell me Neil, will there be a lengthy debate about the need for two conference centres when the project comes up before the planning committee. I think not. That is if the Scottish Government dont make the decision and lumber us with two conference centres anyway.
mike shepherd
Report this comment

Mike, the biggest challenge facing AECC is it's main exhibition space. It is 25 years old, and if our business rates weren't being siphoned off to support elsewhere, it would be a very simple and cost effective decision to rebuild it. Instead, last year £80m of Scotland's money went into a revamp of Edinburgh's centre, which despite being in the capital, does not generate as much income to the Scottish economy as AECC. The building of a new replacement space, without using tax payers money under the new UTG, could be the answer to the City's future conference requirements, not the threat you suggest.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Mike, the Scottish Government (whoever is running it) would rather have no centre in Aberdeen, in the vain hope that Offshore Europe would relocate to Glasgow. If AECC closed, the OE would relocate to London, but it would appear this is a risk worth taking, rather than put any Scottish Government money into AECC.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Councillor Fletcher, I'm looking at the debt burden of AECC on account of the City Square apparently being funded out of another, subterranean one, after the beautiful parklands at UTG have been bulldozed by Sir Ian Wood. Could you remind me how many free concert tickets you took from he AECC when you were Chairman, to help me with my TIF sums? I'd be obliged if you could furnish similar info for Councillor Kirsty West. Thanks.
onda case
Report this comment

Dear Councillor John Stewart. I wonder if you can help me with my TIF sums vis a vis the City Square monstrosities which Sir Ian Wood has had designed on the cheap. How much could a commercial estate agent sell the St Nicholas House site for, on the open market? Do you think Stewart Milne, or anybody at acsef, would know??
onda case
Report this comment

This is the one that really gets me "I'm just fed up to the back teeth with all the rubbish we've been told and the abuse anybody who questions this gets". Well Mike Shepherd welcome to the world of others.
Sasha M
Report this comment

Honestly mike shepherd, do you have to hijack every topic for going on and on about your hobbyhorses? This is supposed to be about St Nicholas House.
Hoots Min
Report this comment

Mike Shepherd is toom tabard as far as any serious debate is concerned. I suspect he doesn't have much to offer in an adult debate but disguises the fact behind stock phrases.
Jock W
Report this comment

Mike you really have shown today that you really don't have a grasp on what is going on here haven't you. The comment "and two have office blocks along Belmont Street" how else is TIF going to work if all development in the immediate neighbouring locale is choked off? Absolutely incredulous!!!
Sasha M
Report this comment

Should have been have and not haven't. Unfortunate double negative on my part before I get pulled up by the grammar and spelling police.
Sasha M
Report this comment

Onda case, for goodness sake, if you're going to be that impolite, at least have the decency to be open and honest about who you really are. Until then, im afraid I'll be ignoring you.
Neil Fletcher
Report this comment

Ah! 2 million pounds.. was that not the amount wasted on the planned hotel at the conference centre... before the idea was scrapped because the then people in charge, that had the "vision" got carried away with their position.... The very same white elephant that brings £80 million to the city but can't pay its outstanding £28 million back to the council, who have borrowed the money to prop it up...from the common good fund I am lead to believe....
Lord Lucan
Report this comment

Keep Union Terrace Gardens and refurbish please. Because of vested interests the gardens are left unrepaired and uncared for. Many of these designs have mature trees as illustrations and we all know that will not be possible on top of a concrete car-park. Listen to the people. Talk to the Community Councils! None of them have supported this Civic Square development. The people of Aberdeen are being bulldozed into destroying our common land.
Renee Slater
Report this comment

If the AECC is ever rebuilt or moved elsewhere then please do us a favour and actually consult with someone that understands acoustics. Sound quality is the single most important thing in a music venue, and the sound quality in the AECC is utter garbage. Perhaps that's why it's in so much debt, and why it struggles to attract major acts on a regular basis.
Craig Adams
Report this comment

The whole council is currently on borrowed time, they were not elected to serve this long they got the extension as a result of the decoupling of Holyrood and local govt elections. Will anything change next yer however with Multi member wards and STV in place. Are we likely to see any change to the SNP, LIb/DEM, Tory or Labour groups or will it be all the same faces ? Genuine question how many Cllrs are standing down and whats the best guess as to how many will be back ? FWIW im no lib dem but sincerly hope both Fletcher and Stewart are back after may.
G Bell
Report this comment