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David Knight: Want Aberdeen to thrive like Inverurie then make it accessible and get rid of bus gates

Personal car usage by ordinary motorists (and business customers) is being sacrificed at the altar of the hated bus gates.

A once busy Union Street is now closed to traffic as the High Street suffers from the lack of accessibility.
A once busy Union Street is now closed to traffic as the High Street suffers from the lack of accessibility.

The history of Aberdeen’s ancient Castlegate landmark and outstanding Mercat Cross is rich and somewhat painful at times.

In one momentous episode, civic officials were marched out into the square at swordpoint by Jacobite leaders to toast their new “king” Bonnie Prince Charlie.

An eclectic bunch of independent traders now mingle with the wonderful historical features all around.

Their fortunes appear to be somewhat turbulent, too.

They now feel civic officials have knives held to their throats instead after claiming roadworks hemmed them in.

Or at least made would-be customers think twice about crossing an obstacle course of barriers and JCB diggers which laid siege to the square as workmen launched lengthy pavement improvements. Owners say the view towards them from Union Street puts people off.

The view back from Castlegate is even worse.

In Union Street it looks like a historical re-enactment of the construction of the Berlin Wall has taken place.

An ugly barrier runs down the middle of the street, dividing beleaguered businesses on either side, as a new market is constructed along with various improvements.

Is it levelling up or digging up?

A council poster on the barrier tells us it’s all “powered by levelling up”; it would be more accurate to say “digging up”.

All very depressing and miserable, especially when factoring in controversial bus gates encircling the centre like a threatening iron curtain, low emission zones and multiple roadworks causing chaos everywhere you go across the city.

In the long run, it might deliver what we all dream of – a more attractive, buzzing and prosperous centre of Aberdeen.

You can’t achieve major change without a certain amount of chaos.

But it’s the way it was steamrollered through with little apparent thought for business, along with poor public consultation, which has angered people.

And they are at it again.

A council spokeswoman was quoted as saying “we would have preferred to consult” (over Castlegate), but pressing ahead “was the only viable option”.

Castlegate works.
A map showing what parts of Castlegate’s stones will be replaced. Image: Aberdeen City Council.

I cannot believe how easily and blithely anonymous council officials waved aside essential democratic rights.

How many businesses will pay the price while waiting for this disruption to deliver anything?

They say Labour’s deceitful Budget shows a worrying lack of knowledge of how business works and the same accusation is levelled at Aberdeen Council.

It’s not doom and gloom everywhere.

I was struck by the news that business was booming in neighbouring Inverurie, possibly at the expense of Aberdeen.

I wonder why? But you don’t have to look far.

Pictures accompanied a P&J report about Inverurie becoming a magnet for shoppers.

Some of whom were exasperated no doubt by the delusional antics of Aberdeen’s council bosses.

I compared pictures of traffic streaming into Inverurie with recent bleak impressions of futuristic traffic-free zones in Aberdeen and Inverness.

The ideology which Aberdeen Council has been attempting to drive through its own city – except local citizens can’t actually drive through certain key thoroughfares without being hammered by fines.

Personal car usage by ordinary motorists (and business customers) is being sacrificed at the altar of the hated bus gates.

Where making the buses run on time and forcing us onto them whether we like it or not is the main priority.

With practically zilch public consultation.

Who catches a bus these days unless they have no choice?

The quality level of public transport has to accelerate rapidly as the general ambience of this travel option is hardly exhilarating.

The bus gate on Market Street in Aberdeen. Image: Kenny Elrick/DC Thomson
The bus gate on Market Street in Aberdeen. Image: Kenny Elrick/DC Thomson

For a start, you have to rub shoulders with the great British public.

Are Aberdeen bus gates really the right way?

I still have nightmares of being on a bus (not in the north-east) with my wife, which was beset with a trio of scary episodes during a journey of a couple of miles.

Yobs set fire to seating on the upper deck while another group of hoodlums threatened to stab the driver, but he fought back with a Lucozade bottle.

Finally, the driver had some sort of nervous breakdown, stopped the bus and asked all the passengers to disembark; I glanced back and saw him slumped at the wheel with his head in his hands.

I know this was a rare occurrence, but you know what I mean.

Recently the P&J reported that bus drivers were running a gauntlet of young troublemakers in one terminus. The Inverurie article showed a business boss whose job it was to drum up trade.

Guess what? He was surrounded by lots of traffic carrying eager customers to their doors.

I tried to look on the bright side about it being worth it in the long run as I wandered about Union Street and Castlegate the other day.

A busker outside Primark was blasting an amplified trumpet with pneumatic drills as his backing “orchestra”.

He was playing the tune of Sinatra’s “My Way”.

But we ask ourselves if some aspects of how the council is going about it are the “Right Way”?


David Knight is the long-serving former deputy editor of The Press and Journal

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