Union Terrace Gardens: Timeline

The public vote to transform Aberdeen’s Victorian Union Terrace Gardens brings to a close a three-and-a half-year wrangle over the future of the city centre.

October 2008: Aberdeen City councillors agree a £3 million grant towards a £13m arts centre – a new home for city-based Peacock Visual Arts – in Union Terrace Gardens (UTG).

November 2008: Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood pledges £50m towards creating a civic heart for the city centre, focused on the gardens site.

June 2009: Aberdeen City Council agrees to explore a £140m proposal to raise the gardens to street level.

July 2009: I Love UTG campaign group, opposing the plans, is launched.

March 2010: Restaurateur Steve Bothwell launches rival plans for the gardens featuring a restaurant and a cooking school, which would be “open to all”.

April 2010: An eight-week public consultation finds that 55 per cent of 12,000 people who took part in a poll oppose the new city garden plan.

May 2010 : Councillors reject the Peacock project in favour of city garden scheme.

May 2010: Aberdeen-born pop star Annie Lennox joins the debate – saying Sir Ian’s plans were “an act of civic vandalism”.

June 2010: More than a thousand people who oppose the scheme attend a protest picnic in the gardens.

May 2011: An international design competition is launched.

July 2011: A shortlist of six finalists is announced.

January 2012: A design by New York architects Diller Scofidio & Renfro, is named winner.

February 2012: First Minister announced he supported the scheme – but said decision should be made by Aberdonians.