Union Terrace Gardens are go!

Well didn't I tell you so? Clever people with money and power have won the day while has-beens like Annie Lennox can go back to their alternative lifestyles or tax havens as appropriate. The great unwashed of Aberdeen and its surrounding bogs and mire can return defeated to their black houses, railway carriage homes and but'n' bens on forsaken hillsides while sensible people celebrate and drink themselves unconscious in the fine bars of Aberdeen tonight. The news is explained here for people who can read.

It's a great day for Aberdeen, for Scotland and for the art and science of town planning - no less than that. You see, when very rich people get involved in regeneration it always ends well - just look at Glasgow Harbour or Edinburgh Waterfront. This time we have seen an alliance of the north east's finest brains like Sir Ian Wood and that lovable rogue of the mass produced housing for the plebs, Stewart Milne who also supports Aberdeen Football Club, one of the most successful teams in the Scottish Premier League this year! It's all just too much. I can scarcely believe how lucky we are to have such fine people involved in planning the future of this great city. And with my hero Donald Trump just up the road, you can see that no other part of Scotland is so blessed.

As for the Peacock Arts Centre, I hope they are out of the game now - thank goodness. Aberdeen has no time for their arty tosh and weird sandal wearing lifestyles. Goodbye losers! That's all I will say for now - I am staying over in Inverness tonight and this wi-fi is costing me a fortune but I will still go out to celebrate the fact that all this was done despite the public. Soon they will appreciate this fabulous and generous initiative. Hurrah for Sir Ian! Hurrah for Stewart Milne!

Building Scotland Magazine is so great!

You know, I've raved on about Building Scotland magazine in the past but I'm almost completely overwhelmed by the fantastic collection of developments in my personal edition of this learned journal which I received this morning. Right from the opening pages it's an architect's dream - I gorgeous collection of beautiful projects and people that are worthy of the highest accolades. If you look at the wee photie above you'll see what I mean - cutting edge design delivered with panache and sensitivity to context. It certainly gets a gold star and a big tick from me! No wonder that Scotland is the envy of the architectural world.

Now just look at this building above - it's St Kentigern's Academy at Blackburn in West Lothian. It only cost £6.6m and amazingly, the architects were too humble to put there name to it - but my guess is that Keppies or Archial were responsible for this visual treat. Anyway, I'm sure the lucky children who will be educated in this building will have a great start in life.

Now just look at this! It's a critical road improvement scheme built by Highland Quality Construction and surely an award winning project for it's use of colour, integration with the landscape and sheer craftsmanship - look at the smooth curves of the white-lining! And the delicate use of big black bollards is a lovely touch. Building Scotland really has an eye for these great projects and should be heartily congratulated. This is so great!

Finally I have to mention Andy Walder, Director of the National Construction College, who has two articles in this issue on building a sustainable future. I'm with you there Andy - very important for the planet and our children. Both articles are identical though (page 16 and page 29) and I assume this is a clever editorial technique for emphasising the importance of what this great (if glum) man has to say to Scotland. Sometimes you have to say things twice. So well done Building Scotland Magazine - great work!

Total Luddites

Gillespie Investment Group, the Glasgow-based commercial property arm of the Gillespie mining and haulage family firm, has received permission for a £200 million data storage development on a 164-acre part of the Drumshangie site, a former open-cast coal mine at Greengairs. You know, the goons in London - otherwise known as the RTPI - will be getting the message loud and clear at last. There's a fantastic story about it in the Herald today (and I make no apologies for using their image and some of their text). Actually I was personally informed of the situation in North Lanarkshire through a message we received courtesy of Bell and Scott whose daily newsletters about the latest terrific developments in Scotland's rampant property development industry have surveyors and land agents fighting to get to their PCs round about lunchtime every day. Well of course it's not everyone who gets this and to be honest, this was forwarded to me by a friend who works inside the cage at North Lanarkshire Planning Department. Boy are they down in the dumps! Here's why.

One of the most ambitious integrated developments of a former industrial site ever planned in central Scotland has received a key planning permission from North Lanarkshire Council despite opposition from council planners, who were described by local MSP and Scottish Government housing minister Alex Neil, as “total Luddites”. Great - people are speaking the truth for once.

Now I haven't seen details of this great development but I'm sure it is very good - and certainly more than a dump like Greengairs deserves with its open cast coal mines, rubbish tips and slag heaps. Really, the Bucky Bhoys won't even notice. The plans on display behind Cammy Fraser (top picture) look tantalising though and were probably produced by Keppies or some other top firm who know how to get the best out of the planning system and who have always been thought leaders in green belt redevelopment.

But the real story here is how the planners were completely over-ruled by a collection of enlightened elected members who are wise enough to live elsewhere and who poured scorn on all the usual planning issues and went for development at all costs - excellent! Scotland is dragging itself out of the dark ages with the help of Donald Trump and Sir Ian Wood in the Aberdeen area and now help has come from the most unlikely quarter of North Lanarkshire Council. It's great! They should be up for the RTPI's own Planning Award soon!

Edinburgh's slum shops to be phased out

You know, I was absolutely delighted to read last week in the Scotsman that local shops in the middle class slums of Edinburgh are about to get a hearty kick up the backside. Yes! At long last Sainsbury's have decided to intervene in this part of the market in a great move that will see horrible wee local shops put to the sword - together with their salmonella sandwiches and mouldy books. So it's goodbye to the small independents, hairdressers and junk shops that make places like Morningside, Marchmont and the Meadows look so old and tatty.

After years of focusing on the construction of fabulous clean out of town superstores that we can all drive to easily, supermarket chains are now looking to local, metro-style stores for their expansion, and in many cases, the independents are alarmed. Well who cares about them? Knocking three or four filthy little shops together into one seems like progress to me. What's more, the food will be properly packaged instead of lying out in a open tray and being home to twenty blue-bottles for the past week. Disgusting!

Here's another great idea - what if Sainsbury's or ideally Asda knocked down a whole parade of local shops, built a metro style store and used the rest of the site for car parking? Now that is a 21st century approach to town planning and the sort of thing that will leave local councils wishing they had thought of it. It's the sort of thing that Scotland's dynamic property development industry will be only too happy to provide and planners will nod it through of course - well they have nothing else to do these days thanks to the goons at the RTPI in London.

The RTPI has a new President!

I wonder how many of you town planners out there realise the crisis we have on our hands with the goons in London otherwise known as the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI). Now as you all know, the RTPI is not my favourite organisation to say the least - flashy offices in London, a ridiculous logo, outrageous fees and company cars for many of the staff.

Now usually the President is a womaniser, religious maniac or sociopath - or all of these. But now they've appointed a woman as President - I carried out an image search for her on Google and the wee photie above is what I found. I don't know President Ann Skippers personally of course but I wish her well and hope that she lives long enough to see out the Presidency. Poor old soul - surely she could find something better to do at her age.

Union Terrace Gardens again

I see the Sunday Herald was at it again yesterday, giving publishing space to some local loon called Jim Hamlyn who is opposed to the infilling of the hole currently known as Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen. Disgraceful. Why the Sunday Herald is intent on stopping this development is beyond me - they are trying to ruin the city's prospects of regeneration.

Now you all know my views on this - it is perfectly clear that Sir Ian Wood is rich and clever and so will know far more about urban planning than the great unwashed or some crackpot arts association. They will be too busy polishing their sandals to have thought coherently about the merits of these tremendously exciting proposals. Now since I wrote my last piece on this, I've discovered that in addition to the brilliant architectural practice Halliday Fraser Munro whose cutting edge design work has enthralled millions of architectural students across the globe, Sir Ian has also employed Martha Schwarz. I'm led to believe that she is a landscape architect of some kind but honestly I can't imagine why Halliday Fraser need this sort of thing - I mean it's not going to be a park anymore so why bother with a landscape gardener. In Auchterness we've had plenty of experience of these types and believe me, it's a waste of time and money employing them.

So Jim Hamlyn, you can stop crying into your tea up there at Garthdee and face the reality of 21st Century life. Union Terrace Gardens will be no more - buried. Simple as that. A multistorey car park and related developments are worth far more to Aberdeen than a few trees and a chasm where no one goes except drunken wasters and students. Instead look forward to shopping there - you know you will! And as for the Sunday Herald, you should learn from your pointless and failed campaign against the Great Donald Trump and just leave Aberdeen to the rich folk who know better.

Inverness Campus: a retail park in disguise

You know, I'm filled with admiration for the work of Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) as you know. Their recent work in John O' Groats knocked me for six with its retail driven regeneration plan and circular car parks - fantastic! Now, according to my personal weekly edition of Planning (thanks to the goons at the RTPI for this) they've produced another amazing proposal to create an out of town university near Inverness which has gone in for planning permission.

This will be like an enormous retail park for students. That's a big smack in the face for those miserable jimmies who talk about town-and-gown - the silly notion that universities should be in or near town centres because students spend money in shops and cafes and help local businesses by creating a buzzing street life. Well they don't have any money to spend so that's that one put to bed straight away! You just need to look at Stirling University - students just get on the bus for half an hour - so what?

HIE have employed an architectural firm called 7N to create the drawings necessary to get planning permission. I must admit that these are very poor but of course all the fancy stuff will be abandoned later on in the process when the hard facts of life dictate that most of the buildings will be sheds. As it is, 7N's drawings show a depressing environment of little interest or quality. Actually I wonder if they are architects so if they are serious about continuing their involvement, they had better start getting real and forgetting about the infantile stuff. But it is a cunning rouse to get planning permission and should be given large tick because of that.

Now one of the clever things about this campus is that because it is out of town, it will be dead at night so wildlife will be able to use the facilities when the students leave - a clever bit of box-ticking there for the green agenda. Honestly, it's amazing that people are taken in by this trash but they obviously are - and will be again with these garish proposals.

I've known people in HIE for many years - they may not employ the most attractive women in the world and a lot of them are numpties - but they are really at the top of their game when it comes to getting consent for greenfield developments. Congratulations!