Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Council vote against recovering liable costs from the landowner in Wellington Brae row

Picture submitted by Pauline Gerrard
Picture submitted by Pauline Gerrard

A woman at the centre of a land repair row has broken her silence after councillors voted down attempts to recover the costs of repairing the wall on Wellington Brae.

Pauline Gerrard’s family owns a small section of land at the Ferryhill lane – which was controversially allocated more than £200,000 in public money without any scrutiny from any council committee until the project was discovered last month.

The council had approached former finance convener Willie Young as the landowner seeking to begin the wall repair and tree cutting works – which was to be funded by cycling body Sustrans.

But the local authority suspended the project at the end of April and it has since emerged that most of the affected land is owned by Mr Young’s father David.

Willie Young has always denied any wrongdoing and previously produced legal advice showing he had “no conflict of interest”.

But last night Ms Gerrard said she had only been informed of the work shortly before it began and never gave any permission.

She said: “There is a lot of focus given to the wall but I think that the beautiful trees that have been there for 200 years being cut down is really heartbreaking.

“Why was Willie Young contacted as the landowner when his dad owns the land? And why weren’t we contacted? There are still so many unanswered questions.”

Yesterday’s infrastructure committee met for the council to officially allow the works to proceed.

But an amendment by Liberal Democrat Steve Delaney asked for officers to instigate recovering liable costs from the landowner.

This was rejected by nine votes to eight with administration councillors voting to accept the Sustrans grant to proceed.

SNP group leader Stephen Flynn said: “I’ve once again been left stunned by what we have seen in the Town House today – Labour and Conservative councillors, have stated that we should not seek to recover costs from the land owner for any damage for which they are liable in relation to Wellington Brae.

“It would certainly be my hope that there are no ulterior motives at play here – we have a steadfast duty to stand up for public money.”

Committee convener Yvonne Allan said that a council probe was underway adding: “The amendment put forward by Councillor Delaney would likely lead to more delay and add to the costs of the project and frustrate the process further.”

Vice convener Brett Hunt added that it was “disappointing” that the SNP were “attempting to turn another decision the people of Aberdeen want to see into a political point scoring match.”

Willie Young was unavailable for comment.