HUNDREDS of protesters are expected outside Aberdeen Town House as city councillors discuss the future of the controversial Marischal Square development at a specially called session of the full council.
The new building will see 173,500sqft of offices, 26,600sqft of bar and restaurant space, and a 126-bed, four-star hotel built on the space of the old Aberdeen City Council headquarters.
The project was all set to go ahead. But it was not until 3D images of what the design would look like were released at the start of the year that a sizeable group of Aberdonians became concerned by its scale.
A debate on the project, called by the SNP opposition on the council, will take place today. But even if the campaigners manage to convince councillors of their position, it is unlikely the debate will be able to overturn the decision, as full planning permission has already been granted with contracts awarded to Muse Developments.
Campaigners from the Reject Marischal Square group have threatened the council with legal action and taken advice on seeking a judicial review of the planning process at the Court of Session. The motion put forward by the SNP group calls for the suspension of any development and cross-party talks on how to move forward.
Protester Lorna McHattie said she was hopeful of its success but understands the challenges that need to be addressed to win. “It obviously means some of the 23 people who voted for the Muse development need to change their mind, and we need to have a full council complement there,” she said.
“We know of at least once councillor who has changed their mind and will vote differently, so it’s really going to come down to the wire.”
On Monday, the council, a Labour-Tory-Independent coalition, released an FAQ document about the project after objectors tabled a series of Freedom of Information requests. This dossier was supposed to shed more light on the project and reduce the heat in the debate. Protesters argue it has failed spectacularly.
Muse, the company which is developing the project with Aberdeen City Council, says the project will create 300 construction jobs, 1,500 jobs and generate £2 million a year in rent for the council. However, objectors point out the council will carry the financial burden of the development for the next 35 years.
On a bad-tempered debate on local radio on Tuesday night, the deputy leader of the council accused protesters of having politicised the issue – a charge protesters aimed right back at the council administration.
Local journalist Frank Gilfeather, who supports the project, thinks the people of Aberdeen will come round to the development. He said: “I’m quite happy with the development and I don’t see what all the fuss is about really, given that in these times of austerity it will bring Aberdeen a fortune over the years. I’m surprised more councils don’t go down this route of looking at ways to bring in extra revenue.
“The vast majority of people in Aberdeen I don’t think could care less, and I think once the building is up and running, and it’s buzzing, then people will generally say, ‘I’m glad we went ahead with this’.”
Like the protesters he, too, thinks the vote tomorrow will be close. There has been a change in Aberdeen since the development was started. The fall in the oil price has had a knock-on effect on the service industry in Aberdeen. Although hotel occupancy is steady at the moment, and prices for a room in even the most basic hotel can cost hundreds, hoteliers and restaurateurs are worried the sector will take a hit.
It emerged recently that Aberdeen City Council will bear the brunt of the costs for the units in the new Marischal Square development that sit empty.
Even if the administration carreis the motion, McHattie says the fight is far from over. “There’s quite a lot of work going on in the background, fact-finding in terms of the legal process and so on, and we’ve been doing a lot of setting up,” she said.
“We’ve set up Aberdeen Beautiful, a new organisation that will take forward work that has started with the Marischal Square campaign. This is based on a project in San Francisco that started off with a group of people who were disaffected by some of the decisions that are being made by their council on behalf of their city and they wanted to start taking more charge of it.”
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