Letter: Losing control

The design brief for the Aberdeen City Garden Project (the development of Union Terrace Gardens) was to be signed off at a council meeting on 29 June.

The brief should have given specifications both for the civic square and for the use of the large underground space beneath the square. It was to be prepared by the project implementation team, a non-elected group of businessmen and government officials and two councillors.

However, the full specifications were not ready for the meeting. Although a design brief has been issued, it gives specific details only for a small part of the underground concourse. The open space is designated as a contemporary 21st-century garden.

The plans are for council-owned land, an area zoned as public green space in the local plan, and the council has been asked to borrow 70 million to fund it. It is therefore only reasonable to expect councillors to approve the specifications.

It seems this will not happen. A council officer told me "it was decided, by members involved in determining the agenda for council meetings, that there was no need to obtain council approval for this". The intention is to hand out the design brief to short-listed companies for the architectural competition on 21 July. The next full council meeting is not until 17 August.

Councillors have lost control over the City Garden Project. A non-elected body has made decisions as to what our city centre should look like. I would ask councillors to assert their rights to decide on our behalf what happens in our city and to debate the design brief at the August meeting.

Mike Shepherd

Forbesfield Road

Aberdeen