Sir, – It looks like our councillors don’t have much to do or common sense when they come up with the latest hare-brained scheme such as the Aberdeen beachfront masterplan (estimated cost of £150 million).
To me, this is all cosmetic and does nothing to improve the city in general.
We have three arcades within walking distance of each other with each having one or more empty shops. We have Union Street in the same state with more empty shops. Aberdeen is becoming a dump.
The Aqua Centre at the beach was closed because they could not afford to keep it open. By reopening this facility it would bring more much-needed pleasure to the children and adults of Aberdeen than this beach scheme would do.
If previous council schemes are anything to go by, this one would also go over time and budget. It was mentioned in the press lately more money was needed to complete the well-over-budget Union Terrace Gardens project and we still haven’t got a completion date.
I sincerely hope a lot of consideration has been given for easy access for the disabled and those with one form of handicap or another to get about the gardens.
This money could be better spent in improving the roads and streets, opening up Union Street with no restriction to all forms of transport. Spruce up the empty shops and offer them at reasonable rents to encourage prospective retailers back to Union Street.
We have a city with no department store and no shops selling good quality merchandise. There seems to be a question mark over the Marks and Spencer shops.
Where did councillors get the idea Union Street needed widening? I think they have been confined to their offices in Broad Street for too long.
I don’t know the procedure when it comes to voting on certain projects but I would like to think all councilors are allowed to vote and it is not up to small committees of councillors making big and costly decisions affecting our once vibrant and beautiful city.
May I make a suggestion to all councillors: they buy a copy of a 2023 calendar showing pictures of Aberdeen as it used to be.
George R Davidson. Braemar Place, Aberdeen.
Independence will leave country caught between UK and EU
Sir, – At the launch of a paper on the economics of independence, Nicola Sturgeon finally agreed if Scotland joined the EU there would be border customs checks at rail freight destinations and the two main road crossings, the M6/M74 and A1.
When it was pointed out there are 25 other road crossing points she shrugged off the question, saying that would be part of the negotiation with the UK.
Ms Sturgeon might only want two but what if the UK – and the EU – want more?
For example, the SNP is proposing more liberal immigration policies so people from the EU who can’t get into England might use Scotland as a back door.
You’d think all the UK needs to do is set up border posts and there’s nothing the SNP could do about it. But what if the EU objected to the UK interfering in its borders?
Imagine what the people of Scotland and the outside world would think of the EU and UK at loggerheads. Poor wee Scotland.
Allan Sutherland. Willow Row, Stonehaven.
We must look forward, not back
Sir, – Today we need to think rather than just react or recall bygone days. Ivan Reid’s letters are notably decent, yet naively trusting of some failed politics but critical of others.
Older people enabled the election of recent UK government debacles.
Younger voters seek a very different future – as an OAP I am with them, not bygones. In response to Ivan’s letter (October 14) about student youths’ “lack of moral backbone” compared to his summers of hard graft, I did the same in the 1970s to help survive on my student grant.
But in the 2020s my young niece did much more, rising at 4am each day to work before lectures, to pay her fees and live with no grant but a loan. And on a bus, I overheard a student extolling to his mate the cash value of working in a care home. Don’t worry, he said, you get gloves for the smelly bits.
Habits of lazy comfort are seen across all generations. “Have your cake and eat it politics” was given space mostly by the older population. Such poor politics still seem tolerated by older conservatives because “that’s what they have always been”.
Better to think and change, to allow young people their future, which depends not on Conservative or SNP or any party battles, but how to change old habits, to collaborate and survive.
Mike Hannan, Cults, Aberdeen
Hatred no way to conduct politics
Sir, – WA Ross asks me to respond to his letter (October 18) and having read it I think those people who have also done so will see he has answered his own questions.
The content of his letter, trying to justify Nicola Sturgeon’s comment that she detests the Tories, compounds the misguided views which I said in my letter were held by nationalist supporters.
Their hatred of one political party – stirred up by their leader – is not how politics should be conducted and Mr Ross, in his comments, sinks to the same basic level of insults I suggested we avoided.
He may not agree with a politician’s views, but he should spend more time putting forward positive alternatives rather than insulting them.
Andrew Dingwall Fordyce. Garlogie House, Westhill.
Energy bills will be higher than £2.5k
Sir, – Government ministers are being economical with the truth when they say “no-one in the UK will be paying more than £2,500 for their gas and electricity over this coming winter”; this figure is for standing charges and unit rate only. Actual consumption will, inevitably, elevate this figure further.
I accept the more you use the more you should pay, but it is misleading to give the impression that £2,500 is the maximum payable.
Dr Ian A Gillanders. Queens Road, Aberdeen.
Blackford remains an embarrassment
Sir, – Like your correspondent, Frederick Stewart, I remember the leader of the SNP being ordered to leave the Commons. He was so ordered because he refused to withdraw his use of unparliamentary language.
Any student of Parliament or newly-elected MP is aware of what is acceptable language. Ian Blackford is a member of the Privy Council and was obviously well aware he should have withdrawn.
Yet again he causes embarrassment to Scotland.
David Burnside. Albert Terrace, Aberdeen.
No more centres
Sir, – Stop building new shopping centres. Look what happened to Bon Accord centre and Trinity centre. Cheaper rent and rates, and why oh why build a new market?
Like Union Terrace Gardens, the Green should be kept, well, green. It should have places for people to meet, relax, eat and drink in open spaces to keep people from going to other towns to shop.
Make Union Street people-friendly. Simple, isn’t it?
DC.
Tories are a joke
Sir, – In response to Mr Grattan’s latest post asking for no further changes in or by the UK Government so that confidence in the government can be restored.
But already they have made changes with the latest chancellor already reversing the majority of the mini-budget.
There is little possibility the public will regain any confidence in this comic party currently in power.
JR.
Let’s rev up Union Street
Sir, – An emergency summit is to be held to discuss the decline of Union Street.
Aberdeen Inspired, Grampian Chamber of Commerce, and Aberdeen Council will discuss promotions such as improved business listings on Google, a cable car from city centre to the beach, and support for festivals such as Nuart and the winter festival.
When will one of these institutions come clean and acknowledge that the major issue with footfall on Union Street is the fact that central Aberdeen is an anti-vehicle zone.
We have bus services that are unsuitable for the suburbs, one-way systems and traffic routing that directly create logjams, cycle lanes used by a tiny proportion of the city citizens to the detriment of efficient travel, and parking fees specifically intended to increase bus passenger traffic, and the cycle continues while Union street and its businesses struggle to exist. This summit, like all others that have ignored the role of the motor vehicle, is doomed to fail.
Walter Service, Danstone.
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