A New Scottish Enlightenment

You know, the Scottish Enlightenment was a period in 18th century Scotland characterised by intellectual and scientific accomplishments and in many ways I feel as though I am living through a second Enlightenment now though this is not an easy path.

This week one of my heroes, the Great Donald Trump, has been set upon by the great unwashed over his plans to build a great new development at Menie near Aberdeen. He has persuaded the local Council to use Compulsory Purchase powers to clear away a mess of scrapyards, bothies, caravans and rundown homes that aren't fit to live in so that he can move forward with his great visions for the area.

Also this week, his supine architect Gareth Hopkins (who I wouldn't ever have recommended on the basis that he is completely unknown) has unveiled the details of the latest masterplan. I must admit to being completely underwhelmed by this. I mean where are the great towering buildings of the original vision, the sponsored roundabouts and the retail malls? Where is B&Q and KFC? Well I suppose Donald must have seen this rubbish before it was released to the press so he must have another trick up his sleeve - possibly to fire the architects when it all goes wrong so that he can use a decent firm....or maybe do it himself!

Anyway I'm absolutely sickened that there is another petition doing the rounds trying to get the whole thing stopped. This is the greatest thing ever to happen in that part of the world and thankfully the Council listen to the great ones with the cash like Donald rather than the moaning housewifes, scroungers and ne'er-do-wells who are probably living off the state in some hovel in Torry. The Council has taken a strong lead here in supporting enterprise and private sector development in the face of prolonged attacks from wasters and we know that the money spent in building and running this development will trickle down into the pockets of those who are prepared to step up to the plate now.

Aberdeen - this is your time, your moment in history. Don't waste it!

Auchterness recognised worldwide

Fantastic! Did you know that this wee blog on Auchterness is read by people all over the world? I'll bet you thought nobody read it at all! Anyway I discovered today that the list of far flung places where Auchterness is known and appreciated for its great town planning includes Caracas, Buenos Aires, Ghana, Dubai (of course), Hanoi, Fiji, Brisbane and Vancouver. In Europe alone, my list of fans includes people from Madrid, Bratislava, Mezohegyes, Athens, Cairo and New Dehli. There's a whole lot of places in America like Colorado Springs and Ontario too. Some folk in Australia but they don't matter for now.

Closer to home there are fans in Helmond, Delft and Enschede in Holland - their whole town was flattened by a chemical explosion a few years back so the opportunities for change must be enormous - just give me a call Dutchmen! And bring over some of your tall attractive young ladies while you are at it!

Isn't it great how the world wide web has compressed the world into a smaller piece? I'm on Facebook now and you can find me here - I think that is my public profile. Sign up to be one of my friends - I will be happy to welcome you to the Auchterness community!

Of moles and men

You know, the simple things in life usually give me more pleasure than the difficult and complex job that I have, trying to build a new community here in lovely wee Auchterness despite all the grumblers and naysayers who work for our partners - or steakholders, as we are required to call them these days. Honestly if I see another vision statement I'll scream out loud!

As some of you might know, I like a game of bowls and just a few miles from Auchterness we have a wee club - that's its picture above, with Charlie our chauffeur doing a left handed effort which probably ended up nowhere as usual. There are some older women at the club too but thankfully they get to play on different nights from us so we don't have to look at them! Anyway I went down to the club the other night to find that moles had been under the green and had basically wrecked the whole place. Now I'm all for biodiversity but this is ridiculous. Thankfully it's getting close to the end of the season so maybe a few lumps don't matter. Some of the guys are putting out traps so that we can put an end to this animal vandalism. There are plenty of bureaucrats - and planners - who should suffer a similar fate!

As autumn approaches, my mind turns to my lovely wife and her young lover. I wonder how they would feel if they woke up one morning to find themselves in a big metal trap. Maybe then people would laugh at them instead of me.

Say no to Poundbury!

A couple of months back, I enthusiastically greeted the Scottish Planner in its new format, thinking that this was the way of the future and an open platform for all sorts of debate about the work of leading Scottish town planners, like me - but in colour. Well you know, I must admit to being very disappointed with the new issue, especially the bit about Poundbury written by somebody from that great firm Halcrow who have a worldwide reputation for giving people what they want.

I've never been to Poundbury but I believe it is a film set sort of village designed by Leslie Krier who it has been said is a Nazi apologist and who dresses in a very strange manner. Supposedly Prince Charles also had a hand in putting it together and of course it is very popular with the English because of that - they just can't resist the allure of royalty. Anyway, this article written by a scribe at Halcrow is a disgrace. What's worse is that Halcrow sponsor the Scottish Planner so they probably have a lot of editorial control - so it was easy to get this stuff published.

Now I don't mind a bit of a laugh but to imagine that there are any lessons here for hard working planners at the sharp end of Scottish developments is nonsense. You won't find cutting edge housebuilders like Taylor Wimpey or Persimmon indulging in this nonsense - unless it's the only way that they could get planning permission of course. You know, these guys are really on the ball so if that's what it takes to get the development through, I'm sure they would do it. Let's show the Prince a thing or two and build our own way - like Glasgow Harbour or Leith Docks. By the way, I saw some of the Leith developments recently - a gold star and a big tick to the folk who did that - very impressive.

The Lighthouse won't be missed - by me!

You know, I'm absolutely sick of reading about all these unknown architects crying into their tea about the closure of the Lighthouse in Glasgow. I mean who has heard of most of them - even the guys who put the current shambles together are hardly household names (Park and Page). In fact they are completely unknown. You don't hear of real architects like Keppies or Archial complaining about it. Actually, how many people have heard of the Lighthouse?

I must admit to a bit of bias here. I've only been to the Lighthouse once - for the Scottish Sustainable Communities Initiative awards - which we did not get and which was a very humiliating experience which I have found hard to forget (see my previous post: Toffs win new award). So I don't have great memories of the place. To be honest, I'd never heard of it before and when we went there to pick up the award, it seemed to be a bit of a holiday camp with people just hanging around doing nothing. I came across this picture on the web of the cafe - deserted! Just like it was when I was there.

You know, one thing I would say is that behind most celebrated 'works of architecture' there is always a human tragedy. It really isn't right that so many fine young people, including some very attractive young ladies, have had to lose their jobs because of the incompetence of management, architects and government in setting up what I gather is some sort of an elitist enclave for design that no one is interested in. On my only visit there, I felt humiliated and excluded - they made me feel like a country bumpkin. I won't forget that - and I won't miss the Lighthouse.

I'm tired of consultation - really I am

You know, I'm sick and tired of all the consultation that we planners have to do these days. Every time we want to do something, someone tells us we have to ask people what they think. It's inevitable that they won't like it so what's the point? Here's a photo of me and Mr and Mrs Macdonald - they live in a wee cottage next to Auchterness and it's a pretty run down sort of place. They're not very happy with our proposals to build a small recycling facility next to their house. If you ask me, the new brightly coloured skips will look much better than their property ever did.

For me, the issue is simple. We planners are the experts at what we do and most members of the public will never manage to comprehend the complexity of our world. Town planners always know what is best for a town and I find it annoying and insulting that nobody trusts us to do our jobs properly. Instead we are dragged out for evening meetings and have pointed fingers pressed into our chests by local ignoramuses like David Macdonald above (who also has very bad breath). The new planning system just introduced by Smart Alex and Wee Jimmy Mackinnon is almost the final straw for me.

But every cloud has a silver lining. One of the things I like about evening meetings with the public is the opportunity to meet comely young maidens who might have turned up to hear experts like myself telling them about the future of their homes. I dream that one day my evening meetings in Auchterness will be like the picture below.

Now that would be something! It gives me hope for the future. Hope that my expertise will be recognised by an appreciative audience and that planning can once again be a respected profession filled with beautiful people.

I must be stupid!

A friend of mine in the States sent me this the other day - apparently it's been going the rounds on the internet - but I must admit that it leaves me completely baffled. It seems that there is some town planning movement called New Urbanism which is quite like a religious movement. The leaders are figures like Andrew Duany and Leslie Krier though I must admit I've never heard of either of them. It seems that our very own Wee Jimmy Mackinnon - the Chief Planner of all of Scotland - is also involved in this. He's somewhere in the painting above. They get together each year for a big conference and it's a wee bit like the Jehovah's Witnesses and their Watchtower. In fact somebody told me that Leslie Krier had designed a watch tower for these New Urbanists at a place called Seaside - you can see the similarities below.

My friends in the States regard these people as very suspicious characters, distributing pamphlets and the like as if it was going out of fashion, trying to get people to plan and pray at the same time. Here's a picture of some of them in action.

I hope this sort of thing never happens in Scotland - especially in my lovely wee Auchterness. My father used to go to church but he never mixed up his religion with his full-time job. These folk are making a big mistake if they think that the cream of Scottish planners are going to start having religious feelings - it wouldn't be right, and I'm completely confused about why our own wee Jimmy Mackinnon is involved with these perverts.