Powering up with Forth Ports

You know, one of my all time favourite organisations is Forth Ports PLC - well next to Clydeport perhaps. I just love it when a former namby-pamby public body, probably employing thousands upon thousands of wasters and burdens on the state, turns into a rapacious property developer on the back of land assets generously gifted from the public purse. Custodians of the river no more! There's money to be made and beautiful developments to create!

Now you know I had previously mentioned Forth Ports in connection with Leith Docks which I correctly identified as an Epicentre of Dynamic Growth. Well things have been moving on apace since then. Much to the concern of green Wellington-ed nimby conservationists and stoppers-of-good-things-happening Greener Leith, Forth Ports have a devilish plan to build a couple of power stations slap bang in the middle of residential developments on Leith Waterfront. Mixed Use Development at its best! What a proud moment for Edinburgh! Power stations are the cathedrals of the future, enabling our kettles and electric blankets, so having one on your doorstep is just about the best thing ever.

But wait for it....the power station will be fuelled by biomass! Yes - that's one in the eye for the climate police! So the residents of the nearby houses can watch thousands of tons of biomass materials (or trees as they are more commonly known) arriving on trucks day and night. It's a bold move but a necessary realignment with a green agenda which is all some people want to hear about these days.

All power to you Forth Ports - here's to your Batterseas of the future.

I'm back - so is Sir Fred!

Hello - I'm back from my spell in the wilderness. My last posts on November 15th hinted at the onset of a depression which is now sadly normal for me in the darkest hours of the miserable Scottish winter. Particularly bad this year as I was snowed in for a week between Christmas and New Year. Just as well I couldn't get out or I might have thrown myself in the loch - except it was frozen over I'm told. Anyway, moving forward into 2010, I hope to ease myself back into a series of long overdue posts dealing with all my favourite subjects and of course some news about our lovely wee Auchterness.

First of all, and I know it's an old story to all you news-hounds out there, I want to welcome back Sir Fred Goodwin to the land of the living - where he belongs. I was horrified at the treatment he received last year from the press and from the criminal fraternity who targeted his modest house in Edinburgh with bricks and dog's doings. Honestly, to think that Scots have so little respect for people with money and power is completely beyond me.

In my long experience as a manager, it has always been the staff who are to blame when things go wrong. Sir Fred Goodwin will be completely blameless for what happened to RBS - mark my words. Personally I blame the tellers and counter staff for this fiasco - and my bank manager too - he must take some of the blame for pulling me up about me going £107.65 overdrawn when his own company was up to its neck in bad debt. Clearly the incompetence and double standards of lower order staff brought this pillar of Scottish finance to its knees. But thankfully, that great Scottish firm RMJM - who I have praised in the past here and here - with its worldwide profile have thrown him a lifeline.

Make no mistake, RMJM have a genuine high flyer here who can step up to the plate and eat as much historic architecture as Leningrad has to offer. Quite rightly, Gazprom are proceeding with the electrifying proposals drawn up by Fred Goodwin and it will soon be obvious to all except the naysayers, conservationists, communists and other dissidents that he is right to plough through historic envionments and thrust a great tower into the skies next to the Hermitage. That's just progress - people should accept it or go back to ploughing fields with oxen.

You know, I'm deeply jealous of Fred and his team. Progress is a way of life for them but here in Auchterness, the McTaggart family can't even have people round for dinner in case the house sinks further into the bog with the extra weight. I'm sure this sort of thing is making Auchterness unattractive to incomers. We must act soon and commission Sir Fred and his dynamic team to produce a vision for our community. I will speak to the Board next month. In the meantime, look out for more cutting edge opinion from Auchterness.

The Sunday Herald, Trump and the RTPI

You know, there's another ridiculous article in the Sunday Herald today about the latest fuss around the Greatest Golf Course in the World. I walked down to the wee shop before breakfast and by the time I got back with the paper I was so angry I had thrown away the sports section and the colour magazine.

Apparently the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI aka the Goons in London), which represents 22,000 town planners in the UK (including me unfortunately) is examining a complaint that "Dr Christine Gore, director of planning for Aberdeenshire Council, failed to act with integrity and independence while handling Mr Trump’s application for a £1 billion luxury golf resort".

Well if you believe the RTPI are having an enquiry then you will believe anything - they are busy extracting as much cash as possible from their membership and can't afford to alienate anyone with an enquiry. After all there is a plush London office to maintain and decent salaries with company cars to pay for.

But the point here is that every good planner colludes with developers to get things moving - it's the only way to make any progress. And the main reason they collude with developers is that they want a better job - usually with the developers. Yes, they want to get out of local government as quickly as possible! I can't understand why anyone thinks there is anything wrong with this or that it is unusual in any way. In other words this is another non-story dreamed up by the gutter press to besmirch the good name of Donald Trump and his lovely family. Today I'm ashamed of Scotland - again.

ps - these great images are from www.zimbio.com, Photos by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Europe.

The nasty side of Sccotland

You know, this blogging business isn't easy for someone with a sensitive disposition - like myself. Over the past two months, since I've been bringing people the good news about important developments around Scotland, I've been subjected to a stream of abuse and flames, some in comments but most of it in emails accusing me of all sorts of things. This culminated in a ticking off from Graham Stewart of BBC Radio Scotland about my reaction to his programme on the Great Donald Trump. Also, I was advised that I had a place reserved for me up against the wall come the revolution as a result of my article about Union Terrace Gardens.

I've been very busy for the past week which has kept my mind off this as well as the heartbreaking goings on with my lovely wife and her young lover. To be honest, I've thought of giving it all up but I always come back to the unmistakable truth. Scotland is on the brink of a New Enlightenment fuelled by enterprise, innovation and property development driven by Donald Trump, Sir Ian Wood, Clydeport, Forth Ports, Peel Holdings, Asda and Halfords- truly Scotland is open for business. Many people don't seem to realise the importance of this and live in a dwam - others such as the wasters, gypsies, unemployed and farmers living in their railway carriages, black houses and butt-and-bens throughout the land just want to ruin everything through delay and opposition. Still, a lot of them managed to climb out of their begging bowls to phone the BBC recently - though I believe this was not orchestrated by Graham Stewart, who is not a communist.

Anyway I have an important article to write on Donald Trump, Aberdeenshire Council and the RTPI - as well as preparing the online voting for the Auchterness Oskars later this month - so I will get on with that. Thanks to everyone for their support and interest.

Radio Scotland - enough is enough!

You know, I'm absolutely furious with BBC Radio Scotland and their presenter Graham Stewart, who is probably a conservationist - or worse. I heard part of the programme about the Menie development on Friday morning but stormed out of my house after a few minutes, slamming the door behind me. Of course I'd locked myself out which made things worse.

So I've been trying to write a new post about other important matters of the day but every time I sit down at the computer I can only think of this disgraceful broadcast which tried to besmirch not only the good name of The Great Donald Trump but also his son Donald Trump Jnr, a man who drives a tractor with style and panache! People in the office say I'm obsessed with the Trump development but it's just a healthy concern for the economic development of Scotland and the part that we town planners can play in it. At the same time, I know if I had a more settled home life I could maybe take it all in my stride.

It seems clear to me that the BBC is completely opposed to this fantastic development. Their strategy seems to have been to assemble queues of wasters and layabouts at public telephone kiosks around the country to phone in a deluge of insults and one-sided economic and environmental arguments that don't hold any water. Now the purpose of this escapes me given that work is already underway and soon the Great Donald Trump himself will tee-off, celebrating a total victory over the inbred luddites of Aberdeenshire and the once treacherous sands of Menie which he will have tamed.

I'm shocked that some people have attacked Donald on a very personal basis. I know for a fact that as a Scotsman, an architect, a developer and entrepreneur par excellence, he is set on achieving the very best for the country. He is also kind and considerate - for example I heard recently that one day when he was out horse-riding near the family home in Stornoway, he came across a bird with a broken wing lying beside the road. He took the bird in his large hands, comforted it, sheltered it inside his riding jacket and took it home. At enormous cost, he flew specialist veterinary assistance from the mainland to his home and within weeks, the bird was able to continue on its journey.

That's the sort of man who is subject to all this vilification. Radio Scotland! You should be very ashamed!

Trump tees off - with Pampas Grass!

You know, the sheer brilliance and ingenuity of my hero the Great Donald Trump never ceases to amaze me. Flying in the face of the gypsies and thieves camped out on the site of what will be the Greatest Golf Course in the World, Donald has set about stabilising the useless sand dunes that harbour midges, newts and other pests that may distract the golfer on his way round God's Own Golf Course.

But guess what he is using? Maybe I've given the game away to you gardening types who will know the answer immediately. Yes - Pampas Grass! Fantastic! Now this is highly technical work - sand dunes can move and are quite dangerous in the wrong hands. They can destroy a golf course in certain wind conditions and can even envelope tees, a fairway or even a golfer himself, so it's entirely appropriate that this problem is dealt with before the first round is played. Pampas grass is the recognised answer to this problem.

But this is not just to do with technical issues - there is the question of style. No one will want to play on a golf course that looks like a stretch of old sand dunes with bits of fields in between so Donald and his servile architect Gareth Hopkins have come up with the idea of coloured Pampas Grass. This is a fantastic innovation and I must admit I'm beginning to see the value in using this guy Hopkins - if it his idea of course. Pink will bring a touch of colour too and of course it reminds me of the expensive negligee I bought my lovely wife in happier times. But pure suburban style from Donald and his team.

My final word on this tremendous news for Aberdeenshire and for all the inbred loons living in old railway coaches and black houses around Menie is that soon your pockets will be bulging with cash as the trickle-down effect of Trump's goodness flows into your bank accounts. Jobs in table service, polishing shoes, washing cars and clearing drains will make you rich beyond your wildest dreams. Fantastic! This is regeneration in action and a great victory for Scottish Town Planners.

Sponsorship pays off for the Scottish Planner

As my regular readers will know, I was mightily impressed with the new format for the Scottish Planner which came out in February of this year in a bi-monthly format - and in colour! For those of you who are unfortunate enough not to be qualified in town planning, the Scottish Planner - or the Journal of the RTPI in Scotland as it is subtitled - is usually an opportunity to keep up to date with the mind-dumbingly tedious gossip around the few folk who run the show in Scotland. But it also features articles by some of the greatest thinkers of our time - hardened professionals tempered by the fires of regeneration and property development.

In the current issue, the great Italian Planner Stefano Smith, Regional Director for Development and Design (Scotland and Ireland) at Halcrow Group Ltd, (what an impressive job title!) considers the next wave of business parks which will sweep over the economic landscape in the next few years, destroying small businesses and carving away at outmoded neighbourhoods like a knife through butter. This is a spanking article and a must-read in which planning in Dubai is mentioned - more than once! Halcrow really know what they are doing here and I'm filled with admiration for their deep dynamic thinking, their appreciation of transcendent themes and their blinding strategic innovation. I can't wait to see some real evidence of this on the ground, particularly in some of Scotland's smaller towns which have been waiting to be swept away like this for many years.

Now there is another important point here worth mentioning. Halcrow are sponsors of the Scottish Planner with Biggart Baillie LLP and together they have published an article in each of the issues since the new format was announced - three from Halcrow and two from Biggart Baillie. Some of my colleagues think this is corrupt and shameful - they are entitled to their opinion. Well my message to them is, "Let's have more please!" More news about business parks and less gossip and tittle-tattle will suit me fine. It is great that Halcrow have seized the moment and found a way to get their abundant skills across to the great unwashed of local council planners before other less worthy firms get a look-in. A great piece of work and my hearty congratulations to all those involved in this.