Red-faced council leaders might have breached road rules as they scrambled to appease businesses by lifting an Aberdeen city centre traffic restriction.
In the summer of 2023 the council rolled out bus gates on Market Street, Bridge Street and Guild Street and banned drivers from turning right from Union Terrace.
This was done under rarely used legislation known as an “experimental traffic order”, (or Etro for short) which means the changes can be put in place first before any consultation is carried out.
After months of misery, with wary motorists avoiding the heart of the city for fear of being fined, exasperated business bosses pleaded for the temporary order not to be made permanent.
Despite the protests, the SNP and Lib Dem administration voted to set in stone many of the measures at a crunch meeting in October.
Why did they vote do do away with Union Terrace right turn ban?
But while the bus gates became permanent, one concession was made to trade groups fighting to loosen the city centre traffic restrictions.
The ruling coalition voted to scrap the right turn ban from Union Terrace, which was one of a string of proposals put forward under a Common Sense Compromise campaign spearheaded by The Press and Journal.
The ban meant motorists could no longer head down towards Schoolhill, instead having to take a more convoluted route to reach that side of the city.
When nearby food hall Haigs shut in January, management said traffic changes had “killed the centre of Aberdeen”.
So what has happened since then?
Two months on, the ban remains in place and the local authority refuses to tell us why.
Despite promises to lift it “as soon as possible”, no clear indication of its removal has been given.
And now city centre improvement group Aberdeen Inspired are pressing for answers – claiming the council may have steered straight into a red tape wrangle in attempting to undo just one of the measures.
It’s a tangled web, but it all goes back to a report presented to members in early October, days before the vote took place.
In this paper, penned by city centre mastermind David Dunne, councillors were recommended to make the entire remit of this Etro permanent.
In normal council matters, elected members are free to reject or put forward any changes to official recommendations – which are then voted on by the chamber.
In this case, the report noted that adding any new element to the Etro would require a new “traffic regulation order” to be made.
But when that crunch vote took place on October 11, the council voted to both make the Etro permanent and add a change to it.
What does that mean for Aberdeen traffic changes?
This, it is argued, could put the local authority in a sticky position.
The change was included only on the day, as a result of input from elected members.
Etro rules state for a change to be made permanent, it needs to be consulted on for at least another six months.
Aberdeen Inspired suggest this really means that the change has gone against the regulations of turning the temporary changes into permanent ones.
‘Council might need to go back to the drawing board’
BID chairman, Adrian Watson, is now preparing a summit of business leaders to discuss what this could mean for the future of the measures that have blighted trade.
Mr Watson has been pressing the council on whether this new, amended version of the changes “would require them to re-engage with businesses and the public”.
The business leader added: “To date, we have not received a response to these queries.
“On our levy payers’ behalf, we believe that a full process will afford Aberdeen City Council the opportunity to carry out a full and relevant economic impact assessment, and work with all concerned in finding that Common Sense Compromise.”
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‘We want to lift Aberdeen’s Union Terrace turning ban as soon as possible’
Insiders suggest the Aberdeen Inspired concerns are valid and this explains the hold-up with enacting the changes at Union Terrace.
But Aberdeen City Council has refused to go into detail on the issue despite repeated requests.
Liberal Democrat co-leader of the Aberdeen authority, Ian Yuill, in October put forward the plan to lift the Union Terrace restriction.
While he also declined to share detailed information on the hold-up, he told us the ruling group “wants to see the right turn ban lifted as soon as possible, and looks forward to that happening”.
Read more:
‘I did the right thing’: Why another Aberdeen SNP councillor broke ranks over bus gate vote
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