Novar Drive will explode with enterprise

The site of the great proposal - just behind the wee red car

You know, when a friend of mine drew my attention to a wonderful and clever proposal for a new supermarket and offices at Novar Drive in the slums of Glasgow's West End I was thrilled to bits. At the time, I happened to be in Glasgow on important Auchterness business so took the bus out to the area to get first-hand knowledge.

As we all know, Glasgow's West End is a tenement area filled with Multiple Occupancies, rats and overflowing litter bins yet it is one of the chosen areas for professional types as well as footballers and their wives. Strange, but it's quite different from some of the peripheral housing estates like Broomhill and Jordanhill where most of the schemies live and cause trouble every night.

The depressing tenemental environment of Hyndland Road
- and the fat ladies cafe

I stopped off for a nice wee cup of tea and a biscuit at one of the many cafes in the area. I could hardly get in the door – the place was filled with big women with huge prams yapping away to each other, gossiping and talking about fridge magnets or whatever trivial things came into their empty heads.  I saw many stylish men in tight trousers, bunnets and beards strolling along Hyndland Road on their way to the gym or to their therapists. Some of the women also had beards and most were overweight. Thin men with big fat women - that seems to be the Glasgow look. Not so different from the Broons all those years ago!

The Broons - a typical Glasgow family - a wee man and a big woman

Anyway I digress. Now like many other areas, the West End has been getting rid of its depressing legacy of mixed use - garages, studios, offices, second hand bookshops and workshops are all being swept away and replaced with residential development. It's called mono-use and is the latest thing - remember that you heard about it first from Auchterness! From an expert planner's viewpoint, all these new people moving into the area need somewhere to shop. Enter the G1 Group and their dynamic partners Root & Branch. These folk had the clever idea of building a new supermarket on the site of some derelict properties just off Hyndland Road. It's a braw wee proposal - submitted in colour too! I don't know who the architects were for this building but they have done a great job in the circumstances - it even has a nice wee pitched roof!

The excellent Novar Drive Supermarket proposal

Predictably, a few local residents are up in arms about this - around 500 objections to the planning application were received by the Council. Why? I honestly can't understand why people would object to this. They complain about congestion but don't think that their own cars are causing congestion all along Novar Drive. They will literally have a pint of milk on their door steps but they still complain. This proposal will be a shot in the arm for many local shops, especially those just next to the new supermarket on Hyndland Road - they will get an amazing uplift in business. The area could become a dynamic hub of enterprise once the Council sweep away the interfering nosey-parkerism of a few misguided residents. I am sure most of the objectors simply signed a standard letter that some expert had prepared. The Council should get wise to this sort of thing and throw out objections that are identical except in name and address. In fact there should be new legislation!

As I stood in awe on the corner of Novar Drive and Hyndland Road a wee jakie approached me with a cardboard cup with some coins in it. "Scuse me Grandad, have yous got a pound for the bus hame?" A gave him some money - the poor soul. It seemed obvious to me that the young lad could easily have got a job in the new supermarket and that would solve at least some of his problems. But interfering nosey parkers always think they know best and of course they are usually wrong. They are heartless, loud, mean-spirited and usually badly dressed in my experience.

I heartily support this application and offer my congratulations to everyone who was involved in putting it together. I'm sure it will be approved by Glasgow City Council and everyone will be happy. It gets a gold star in my wee black book.

Cheeriebye from Auchterness – enjoy the rest of the week!

Dressing up in Aberdeen

Cheerz Bar - apparently a favoured venue
for those in Aberdeen's development industry

You know, I was travelling back home after an important business meeting in Aberdeen last week on the fabulous ScotRail Express to Inverness when an extraordinary series of events took place.

I was with a friend of mine called Cameron and we were chatting away when I overheard three young men further down the carriage discussing the business environment in Aberdeen. My ears pricked up! In particular they were speculating that to be successful, you have to be a member of one of the city's many Freemasonry Lodges. These young men were having a great laugh and mentioned some of my heroes in less than flattering terms, suggesting that they were all part of secret society in which all sorts of locker room activity and dubious public school games are rampant. I rose from my seat to confront them but was pulled back by my friend. I was absolutely furious! How dare they besmirch the reputations of my heroes - in public! It took me quite a few miles, a cup of tea and a Tunnock's caramel wafer to calm down. I have to admit that Cameron is more a man of the world than I am so I listened carefully to what he had to say.

First of all he told me that freemasonry is of course rife in all successful companies and organisations in the city - this is a given. Women are regarded as a sub-species and at a typical black tie event the after-dinner speaker will routinely demean women. It's great fun apparently but would be rather embarrassing for most enlightened people - like me.

Then came the second revelation. Apparently the Hon Dr Donald Trump is a symbol of virility and a gay icon in Aberdeen and the North East! That's why his photograph appears so frequently in the Press and Journal. It also explains why my lovely wee blog gets hundreds of hits every time I write something that features the Great Man. It seems that fishermen and farmers from Fraserburgh to Tomintoul are already tuned into this and have a huge appetite for all sorts of Trump imagery and memorabilia. I can imagine the Great Man as a figurehead on a trawler being very popular - or even on a tractor!

The Dr Donald and Sir Ian Show

Thirdly, Cameron went on to tell me about 'dressing up'. By this time I was in turmoil and completely speechless. When I published my highly popular post entitled 'The Dr Donald and Sir Ian Show' about the Great Donald being awarded an Honorary Degree from Robert Gordon's University which was of course presented to him by Sir Ian Wood, I simply didn't realise that this was another dimension of Aberdeen's LGBT scene venturing out into the public eye - for the ignorant out there that is the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Community. The same thing happened when Hon Dr Wee Stewartie Milne got his degree - they all got dressed up and allegedly had a whale of time - off camera as it were. As Cameron said to me, these ceremonies are more to do with coming out, dressing up and having a laugh than a serious academic occasion. Boys will be boys I suppose.

We had only reached Huntly when Cameron suggested that I was a complete simpleton not to have seen this and that my lovely wee blog was rubbish. He used the expression IOTTMCO about the Aberdeen situation - which apparently stands for Intuitively Obvious to the Most Casual Observer. I bristled but inside I felt crushed - could I really have been so blind? What he was implying was that the entire success of Aberdeen as the economic dynamo of the Scottish economy was not based on the entrepreneurial talents of rich and clever people but on their membership of masonic boys clubs in which they dress up for each other, visit gay bars, game the system, fast-track job opportunities and divvy up contract awards on a routine basis. At that point in the conversation, the only trickle-down I felt was a cold bead of sweat running down the inside of my arm.

Now as an expert planner, I'm familiar with many forms of regeneration – the RTPI is always inventing new terms for our work - but I haven't heard of masonic regeneration. Perhaps it will have its moment in the sun and Auchterness will have been the first to have brought you news of a coming trend.

Unfortunately I can't name names in this story - in any case, the list would be too long. However it is absolutely amazing that architects, public sector bodies, quangos, developers, bankers, contractors and business people - all based in Aberdeen - are part of this incredibly successful secret society. Personally I would like to be part of it and I'm sure I have much to offer - especially when it comes to dressing up! Apparently though, I have to be invited first.

Cheery-bye for now and best wishes from Auchterness. I will be back again soon with more insights into the world of the town planner.

New Waverleygate

The New Waverleygate proposal - fantastic!

You know, I'm always filled with admiration for clever people who have the courage to use all the tools available to them to help get what they want. I wrote a few weeks ago about the humble bridge on the Borders railway that had become a 'vital link' and what a clever piece of management and PR speak this was.

The week before last I noticed an important story in the Edinburgh Evening News - it won't be news to some of you and I apologise for that but for others outside the Capital it may be interesting. It concerns the Caltongate development and those loveable rogues Artisan Real Estate. Although this development ticks all the right boxes for me, it hasn't exactly gone down well with the quiche-eating middle-classes of the Capital's inner slums.

The solution of course has been to rebrand the development. It is a tour de force in creative thinking and demonstrates complete mastery of the puppet strings of civic life. Instead of being called Caltongate, the new development will be known as New Waverleygate. It's a name that combines New Labour's 'new-ness' with one of Sir Walter Scott's most popular novels while retaining the familiar 'gate' word which has become incredibly popular since Watergate all those years ago.

Add in some new visualisations featuring  slightly fatter women than before - I'm sure it is cunningly intended to give the proposals 'broader appeal' - and promises of retaining some useless old buildings (which will never be kept) and we have a complete makeover and a fantastically positive new image and brand. In other words, like the 'vital link' on the Borders railway, this is now an “international benchmark for sensitive and innovative development”. Amazing! There is even some planner-speak in there too where the developer talks about improving the “overall look and feel of the area”.

Artisan Real Estate, working in close partnership I am sure with the City of Edinburgh design team, have produced an outstanding revision of what was already a strong proposal. What makes it extra special is the fact that they haven't really changed anything except the name. This makes it a very clever piece of work and a great outcome for the developer and the planning department.

My hearty congratulations go out to everyone involved in this work which gets a gold star and a big tick in my little black book.  Cheerybye for now!

The Flames of Opportunity

Glasgow School of Art - the old (in flames)and the new

You know, when I heard the news on Friday that the old Glasgow School of Art building had been badly damaged by fire I knew immediately what my post would be this week. I was literally burning with ideas and glued to the edge of my seat at the same time!

First of all, before people get too upset by what I have to say, I feel terribly sorry for the students who will have lost all their work, most of which will be irreplaceable. It's a tragedy for people so young to experience such loss, especially at such a critical time in their studies. I remember when I was a wee boy on holiday in Lossiemouth with the family when the tide came in and destroyed a magnificent sandcastle I had built. I was inconsolable. On another occasion, my mother threw out a model of a dog that I had carefully constructed from a Fairy Liquid bottle and some drinking straws - I was distraught.  So I know how it feels.

I was also sad to see Muriel Gray so visibly upset at what was happening around her on Friday. I gather that she is very closely involved in the School of Art so it is not surprising that she was in tears. She's a fine Scottish lassie and talked a lot of sense about the institution and its future - it is more than a building. Exactly!

In contrast, I'm very unsympathetic to the hordes of twittering middle class numpties drowning in their sentimentality, wringing their hands and talking about loss, heritage, poor Toshie and all the rest of it. A blizzard of unwanted and unfocused nonsense from people who probably have never been near the building in their lives far less studied there. It certainly has been an opportunity for overweight women in colourful cardigans to cry into their ghastly homemade soup or for thin bearded men to start talking about their philosophy of restoration.

Smoke from the GSA Fire partly obscuring the
excellent Dental Hospital Building on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

Of course Glasgow School of Art was the UK's best loved building. But nothing is forever. It seems careless of GSA to lose so much of this building in an afternoon and questions will be asked. Doubtless there will a great wave of enthusiasm for restoring the famous library together with what was the most uncomfortable lecture theatre anywhere in the world but of course it won't be the same. Like the grim, lifeless 'meticulous reassemblage' at the Hunterian Gallery at Glasgow University with its hum of air conditioning - or even worse, the construction of the House for an Art Lover in Bellahouston Park on the south side of Glasgow - it would and will be an exercise in stultifying architectural necrophilia. A Poundbury on Renfrew Street - I hate these places!  You know, it strikes me that there are plenty of photographs and drawings of the building and any intelligent person should be able to reconstruct in their own minds what it was like rather than being spoon-fed an ersatz copy.

Perhaps the time has come, and here I have to make references to my previous posts on the development of the School of Art campus, to consider something new and radical that can act as a receptacle for the wonderful creative minds that will drive artistic innovation in a future Scotland and indeed oil the gears of enterprise. After all there is a model for this new approach across the road at the Seona Reid building - even to the extent of a business park aesthetic over-sailing the remains of the old refectory. Imagine a new building over-sailing the remains of the Mackintosh building - exciting prospects indeed! It's all work for our wonderful development industry of course and I'm hopeful that Halliday Fraser Munro will be involved in the new build. I'm sure John Halliday is sharpening his big pencil as we speak.

And speaking as an expert planner, I noticed in some of the photographs that large parts of the old Mackintosh building had flat roofs. I'm sure that Glasgow City Council planners will try to correct this anomaly and insist on a large pitched roof together with sash and case windows in the restored building. Also it may be possible to accommodate car parking in some of the basement space of the new building. Or perhaps an extra floor could be added so that it would be a better match for the towering Reid Building across Renfrew Street.  These are inevitably the sorts of things that GCC planners will be considering.

I may return to this subject in due course but for now, let's hope that Glasgow School of Art can look to the future rather than the past. Best wishes to all my fans and remember, you're always welcome to drop in at Auchterness any time. Cheeriebye for now!

A bridge to nowhere

A Network Rail operative guides the bridge into place

You know, as an expert planner I have a great interest in Scotland's infrastructure. For the ignorant among you this can mean roads, sewers or railways. The other day, I spotted a fascinating update on the progress of the Borders Railway project.

This is another of these ridiculous projects where common-sense has disappeared. Why try to rebuild an old railway line when:

1. there are perfectly good roads to the Borders, and
2. the money spent on the railway could have been spent on a motorway from Edinburgh to Tweedbank.

This is the sort of blue-sky thinking that planners of my generation can come up with. Most planners today just tick boxes and are so buried in procedures that they can't let their imaginations flow! They achieve nothing. Nothing!

Anyway I digress. It was fantastic to hear Network Rail project director Hugh Wark on the progress of this absurd scheme. They had just lifted into place a new bridge on the railway near Galashiels. He said the lift had gone "very well" and thanked businesses and residents for their "patience and co-operation".

I'm full of praise for this approach. By using this crawling obsequious language, the project manager can cover up all manner of failure and mistake  - it's essential to have these linguistic skills today. Politicians do this all the time of course. It's the bland sunshine language of the PR professional used extensively by planners and other folk in the firing line.

But the best bit was to come later when he said that "the new bridge had a "vital role" in the Borders Railway project". Now I wonder what that could be? Indeed what kind of "vital role" could a bridge possibly play? Is it a military exercise - perhaps something to do with the independence debate? Or could it be that this bridge will connect the Tory rural slums of the Borders to Edinburgh? Maybe building the bridge was necessary for trains to run further south than Galashiels? But dramatizing this trivial event has made the whole thing sound incredibly impressive and that's what appeals to me.

Dear Dr Pangloss, long may your black safety helmet glisten in the Spring sunshine!

A Turnberry Lovefest

The Magnificent Hon Dr Donald Trump

You know, I was sitting in one of my favourite retail park cafes the other day when I saw someone reading an article in the Herald entitled 'Trump predicts 'lovefest' with the community near Turnberry'. I was intrigued! I'm sure there are plenty of young Ayrshire maidens who would prostate themselves at the feet of the Honorary Doctor. In fact the whole town of Maidens may get round to doing that in the near future.

Anyway, I wasn't able to buy the newspaper so I looked up the article on the World Wide Web when I got back to the office. It seems that the Honorary Doctor is having lovefests all over the world including Sarah Palin, Meghan McCain and Ross Limbaugh. Even the President of America himself has been included.

I get the impression that this 'story' is a sordid bit of dirt invented by the Herald reporter, insinuating that My Hero will not be welcome in Ayrshire and that he will have to expose himself to local communities if he is to survive - what rubbish!

Nevertheless, the flamboyant developer and all-round genius launched the first salvo of a charm offensive saying that he would do his utmost to woo people to his cause. Actually my advice to him is that there is no need for that in Ayrshire - everyone is too desperate to do anything other than polish his shoes! He said: "I get along with the communities. The people over there are going to love us. It's going to be a lovefest." He went on to say, "What people don't realise is that we had a 93% popularity rate among people surveyed in Aberdeenshire. In fact they had a thing called the Trump factor. Business is booming since we went there. People are coming from all over the world to play the course."

Exactly! Turnberry and its associated centres of multiple deprivation, sectarianism and entire communities on probation will ultimately warm to Hon Dr Donald as did the miserable sheep-loving black house and railway carriage dwellers of Menie - they are rolling in cash now that God's Own Golf Course is such an international success. Regeneration in Ayrshire may actually involve people getting out of bed and getting a job instead of shoplifting but in time, they will get used to it.

All the best for the week ahead and best wishes to the great unwashed of Ayrshire on their good fortune.

Oh no - it's the Kelpies again

Cliché Artist Andy Scott with his 300-tonne Kelpies 

at The Helix park in FalkirkPhotograph: Julie Howden

You know, like most people in Scotland, I'm completely sick of hearing about the Kelpies and alleged millionaire cliché artist Andy Scott. But today there is yet another article about the project which is a cringing piece of self-serving nonsense. The Sunday Herald article reports that, "The creator of the Kelpies has told of his hope that his giant horse ­sculptures will become Scotland's answer to New York's Statue of Liberty". He is not modest in his ambitions! When I read this I found myself reaching for my axe and venturing out into the garden to chop some wood.

For people who are not up to speed on this project, it is a couple of 30 metre high horse heads beside a canal at the Helix Park, Falkirk, near the M9 motorway. It's a regeneration project of course, aimed at bringing in £1.5m each year through guided tours. 

The Kelpies on the Forth and Clyde Canal.
Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Guardian

I commented on this project back in 2011 so as always, I have led the attack. Scott appears to be Scottish Enterprise's house artist and the go-to person for inept people, philistines, numpties and me-too public sector folk who have had an imagination bypass. It isn't Scott's fault that he has this dubious following.

A recent scathing review by Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones branded the work a "piece of trash". He said: "The Kelpies is just a kitsch exercise in art 'for the people', carefully stripped of difficulty, controversy and meaning." Exactly! Jones went on to say, "I feel like crying that someone spent £5m on this piece of trash. Imagine the boost that bounty might have given to Falkirk's public libraries. Instead, school kids will be bussed to a park to gaze on brainless dreck".

These are harsh words but today, Scott appears to be unrepentant as, in the tradition of Private Eye, he uses a freshly cut onion to bring tears to his eyes as he shamelessly pleads for more people to phone him and commission future work. He speaks of the difficulty in gaining recognition for his work while being based north of the Border, and his hope that the Kelpies will boost his profile internationally. Ridiculous - people want more than metal horses these days. The entire article is laughable - for example, Scott says, "There has not been a single enquiry as a result of the Kelpies ... I think the sheer scale of them might in a weird way ... be too big and people think I am only interested in projects involving 300 tonnes [of steel], which is far from the truth". Perhaps there hasn't been a single enquiry because most folk are bored with his work.

I would like everyone to note that this is not a personal attack on Andy Scott. He is a human being after all - misguided perhaps, but he doesn't deserve to be pilloried for trying to make a bit of cash selling prefabricated horses. He has an entrepreneurial spirit after all and a slight artistic bent!  I know all about personal attacks and abuse - my mailbox is full of them every week and I have cried myself to sleep on many occasions. But over the years I have become stronger and more determined to get my important message out.

My advice to Andy Scott is two-fold. Firstly, please stop promoting yourself - it is embarrassing and you should let others do that. Secondly, stop being a fabrication yard for metal horses and think about developing a creative studio producing startling new work. For example a week in Aberdeen would open your eyes to many new sources of inspiration such as the dogs of war, the galleons of enterprise, the necessary destruction of historic environments or contemporary statues of Sir Ian Wood, Honorary Doctor Donald Trump or Honorary Doctor Wee Stuartie Milne. These ideas would be of-the-moment and relevant. Horses are not.

To all my fans, have a great week wherever you are. Remember you are always welcome at Auchterness. Cheeriebye for now!