The former SNP co-leader of Aberdeen City Council sensationally broke ranks with his colleagues by refusing to back moves to make bus gates permanent.
Alex Nicoll, who is married to Nationalist MSP Audrey Nicoll, has long been rumoured to feel uncomfortable about the traffic bans which have hammered traders.
And the Kincorth, Nigg and Cove member last night sent shockwaves across the chamber as he chimed in on crunch talks remotely from his car.
The SNP councillor, who helmed the local authority for a year between 2022 and 2023, told his colleagues that he could not join them in their effort to make the measures permanent.
Why was Alex Nicoll uneasy about Aberdeen bus gates?
Alex Nicoll’s suspected unease about the Aberdeen bus gates spilled into the public realm at the start of October.
During previous talks, he fumed at officials denying councillors the chance to see legal advice used to justify keeping the measures in place.
It warned that the Scottish Government might claim back £8 million paid for interlinked roadworks in South College Street if the bus priority measures were undone.
Mr Nicoll, a law graduate, argued that he should be able to see these documents before making any decision.
He said: “I have an honours degree in law and a post-grad in legal practice…. I can’t get my head around the issue here.
“I would prefer to read the actual document myself because the devil is in the detail.”
And it appears that when he did see those papers, he didn’t like what he saw…
What happened at crucial bus gate vote?
Several hours into the debate, Mr Nicoll’s voice crackled over the Town House speakers as he explained he was on his way to a “pressing family engagement” in the car.
While stopping short of “reiterating points” made in a private discussion about the legal advice, he did reveal his displeasure at the lawyers’ advice.
Mr Nicoll said: “The lack of any substantial challenge to those questions, and the position they developed, is of great concern to me.
“As a consequence, I will not be able to support the recommendation [to keep the bus gates].
“I’ll simply leave it at that.”
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‘Our advice doesn’t look at both sides of the argument’
Mr Nicoll wasn’t the only councillor with a legal background to call the bus gate stance into question.
Tory Michael Kuzsnir, a solicitor for Burnett and Reid, said the advice received “did not look at both sides”.
He said: “I know that, as a solicitor, we could take further advice and get a different response.
“After all, legal advisers take different positions on risk and different position based on the questions they have been asked.”
The Conservative continued: “There was an expectation in my mind that this advice would be external and it would have been a senior litigation solicitor or an advocate.
“That would have been beneficial, if it had looked at the arguments on both sides.
“Unfortunately that was not the case and I do not consider the advice we have adequately looks and reviews both sides of the argument.
“It does not adequately reflect the ability to challenge the preconception in this chamber that we cannot change the bus gates without millions of pounds being clawed back.”
At one point, Labour’s Gordon Graham asked if there were “any potential areas of legal weaknesses which might expose Aberdeen City Council to legal challenge” if the bus gates became fixed.
The council’s top solicitor Alan Thomson replied: “Um, no, I don’t believe so.”
‘It is for us to make decisions’
Mr Kusznir added: “Ultimately it is for us as elected councillors to make these decisions.
“Too many colleagues seem content to subcontract these responsibilities to officers and just to blindly follow officer advice without adequate challenge.”
Although Alex Nicoll refused to back the recommendations to make the Aberdeen bus gates permanent, he stopped short of backing our Common Sense Compromise calling for the measures to be eased.
When it came time to announce his intentions, he boomed: “No vote.”
In the end, his SNP stablemates and their Lib Dem colleagues won the vote 21-15.
Lib Dem council co-leader Ian Yuill said: “In my view, we need to take the legal advice provided by our professional advisors.
“I have confidence in the council’s legal team and the advice they provided us with.”
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