Are you managin’ to keep tabs on a’ the new projects in oor fair city?
Me neither. Every day my EE bears some new artist’s impression of a “vision” for the future by trendy designers and medja consultants who, I suspect wouldn’t – before getting the lucrative jobbie – have kint Aberdeen fae Clatt.
Cooncillors lap up a’ the trendy lingo and appear to have more than enough dosh to lash oot on these highfalutin freelancers yet – scandal that it is – not enough to keep a pucklie swimming pools open. (Hopefully that battle is not yet lost.) And fit happened to oor ain, rates-paid-for, in-hoose Broad Street planners? Jist pliterin’ aboot wi’ bus gates?
However, disagreement wi’ the marketing gurus is afoot. The new branding, Generation Aberdeen, has gone doon like a super-strong vindaloo wie the People’s Republic of Broad Street. Then the hunt was on for a catchy slogan, now settled on: “Our City of Opportunity”. Snoooring.
Wrinklies like me remember when we were internationally and proudly known as The City of Flowers, thanks to gardening genius David Welsh, AKA Mr Roses, and our domination of the Britain in Bloom competition. The cooncil eventually fired him to save money and he went on to become the boss of the Queen’s gardens in London. Would ye credit it…?
Has a’body in the Toon Hoose gone feel?
The most recent “vision” being unveiled to us is the “play factory for the waterfront” – ie a new childrens’ area at the Queens Links. Mum and I spent hours there when the kids were wee.
Ca’ on three decades, and when I hit the pirate ship with my grandtoots, the place was a shambles. Dirty, peeling paint from years of neglect. I let vent in this column about the disgrace of it, and the next time we went it had undergone a good spring clean, glittering in fresh paint.
With the bairns on the wee trainie, Nana contrived to get astride the wooden tube at the front. Sadly, maybe thanks to the recent rain, but I suspect more to do with the super-smooth paint job, I keeled to one side and zonked to the deck, ancient leggies akimbo. Spik aboot hoisted by my ain petard. My babes later declared it was their best day ever at the park and could I do it every time?
Now that area is to have this super-duper “spaceship-like” development, as “experts” price up the first stage of the beach overhaul at £48 million. That includes an “amphitheatre” next to the Beach Ballroom.
Shutting and demolishing facilities the community wants and loves, to throw millions at companies and projects we’re not even sure we really need
Would that be onything like the stage and dance area once at the Links, to which Aberdonians regularly flocked? And apparently next to what used to be one of our favourite attractions – the Beach Leisure Centre, beloved by locals since 1989, then closed in April because of… costs.
Has a’body in the Toon Hoose gone feel? Shutting and demolishing facilities the community wants and loves, to throw millions at companies and projects we’re not even sure we really need. And fit’s wrang with the perfect old slogan: The Silver City by the Golden Sands?
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970