Peter Wilson’s Wrap

You don’t have to be a signed-up member of the Tripping Up Trump campaign to feel a substantial degree of disquiet at the latest revelation to emerge – nay, be extracted – from Aberdeenshire Council as to just how far it and its officers are prepared to go in assisting the Donald in the realisation of his vision for a new town with golf course attached. This time it’s not one of the loony-toon councillors that’s been caught in the spotlight – no, it’s their very own Jessica Rabbit, Head of Planning Dr Christine Gore, who has had one of her letters to Don Combleone’s lawyers outed under Freedom of Information legislation. Clearly it was written on blue touchpaper, because the contents of the 7 April missive are nothing short of explosive insofar as they make clear that, even then, the Council was considering the application of Compulsory Purchase Orders to rid their hero of some troublesome characters whose houses happened to sit on land he didn’t own.

This would be questionable enough in itself, especially as a spokeswoman has now rather laughably denied wrongdoing on the Council’s part, saying that any discussions on the matter had to be in private out of respect for the residents who might be affected. The letter, it should be pointed out, was sent two months after Grumpy Trumpy notified the Council of his intention to seek CPOs to buy four properties not within his purlieu and one month before details of his plans to extend his development in this way actually became public. Presumably telling the said residents that discussions on the subject with the developer were quite advanced would be a bit of respect too far, especially as Dr. Gore’s letter makes clear that “in terms of public relations and management of the inevitable media interest, I would request that we be given at least a week’s notice of your intended submission date. Thereafter, close liaison will be required…in order that we can have a managed approach to what is inevitably going to be a difficult and emotive issue.” Yes, Chrissie, forced evictions can be a bit like that.

I suspect that all of you out there who have regular dealings with our various planning authorities would probably agree that Aberdeenshire’s planning boss has been unusually accommodating in her interpretation of fairness and objectivity. The correspondence obtained by Spinwatch, a Glasgow-based body that monitors public relations, even shows that Trump’s solicitors, Dundas and Wilson, had drawn up a report justifying why CPOs might be needed to acquire extra land within the curtilage, or on the edges, of their client’s estate. Fair enough you might think, except that it was drafted in Dr Gore’s name for distribution to councillors and, instead of being blown out of the water by the local authority for such presumption, was apparently “never used.” The 19th century French political thinker, Alexis de Tocqueville, set out some pithily apt views on politicians in his book ‘Democracy in America’, included amongst which was the adage that “truth is simply a matter of timing” but at least in his day the people he came across were not complete strangers to the concept of honesty. Quite what he would have found to write about had he been asked to produce a volume on ‘Democracy in Aberdeenshire’ is anybody’s guess.

Not that Aberdeenshire’s finest are alone amongst the modern breed of local politicians and apparatchiks in being economic with the actualite´ – no, Scotland’s capital has more than its fair share of laughable rogues who seem determined to take council taxpayers for a ride on the as-yet-unbuilt-and unlikely-ever-to-be-completed tram system. You’ll be relieved to know that I’m not going to write about Edinburgh’s current resemblance to Beirut because the city fathers – in a bid to distract us all from the no-go zones, potholes, craters, burst sandbags and other evidence of the interminable war between the German contractors and TIE, the Council’s wholly-owned but mightily inexperienced expeditionary force – have announced a flurry of initiatives over the past few weeks intended, no doubt, to keep up the spirits of the citizens in these dark and difficult times.

Number one on the list has to be the unashamed brio of the authority in seeking the support of the World Monuments Fund in its attempts to prevent further deterioration of the capital’s graveyards, places “that evoke such significant memories of the history and importance” of the city. The Fund has responded by adding five city centre cemeteries to its 100-strong register of internationally “at risk” monuments because they “form a collection of graveyards that provide a window on the history culture and society of Scotland from the early 17th to the late 19th century.” The Council, of course, is blaming its inability to carry out its legal obligation to maintain the green spaces in the burial grounds on the families supposedly responsible for the tombs, some of which are 300-400 years old.

The upshot of all this is that the Council hopes to form the “Historic Graveyards Trust”, in partnership with one it already has a half share in – the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust – in order to raise money to co-ordinate the upkeep of the grounds. Aside from the abrogation of legal responsibility implied here and the unlikely chance of sufficient funds being raised in the way suggested, one can only savour the piquancy of the Council’s highlighting of problems of vandalism and overturned headstones. Yes, this is the very same Council whose functionaries – in the guise of Health and Safety – has spent the past five years or so toppling over cemetery headstones lest they accidentally fall on the city’s feral mites.

But the announcements just don’t stop there, for the good men and true in the Council’s Market Street headquarters (which, for some reason unbeknown to the Wrap, its inmates insist on referring to as ‘Guantanamo’) – have come up with another stoater, an ‘Emerald Necklace’ no less that is intended to link the city’s parks and gardens. Naturally the idea is not original – our bold boys and girls have based their “vision” on a similar scheme instituted in Boston, Massachusetts as recently as the 19th century, and these green corridors will not only boast “new trees, plants and floral displays” but “plants and floral display boxes will be introduced in the Royal Mile, George IV Bridge, George Street and Princes Street.” Glory be – municipal flower displays are about to make a comeback (a city in bloom rather than boom), providing of course that the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust (yes, them again) manages to co-ordinate fundraising efforts to kick-start the first of these green corridors.

And third on the list of capital projects that seem to involve the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust in partnership with the city fathers is the restoration of St Bernard’s Well on the banks of the Water of Leith. Now it has to be said that a number city monuments (the Nelson and the Burns monuments on Calton Hill spring to mind) have recently been restored by this duopoly but, surprise-surprise, this latest one is subject to the necessary £100k being secured, again from sources unknown.

Now I don’t wish to cast aspersions on the Edinburgh World Heritage Trust’s fundraising abilities but you do have to be concerned that each of the three projects I’ve listed is a direct municipal responsibility that the Council seems eager to devolve as far as it possibly can in order that the money required doesn’t come from its coffers. And no wonder – this week the city’s finance leader, Councillor Phil Wheeler announced that the capital was £247m in the red even before we take into account the much-anticipated colossal over-run on its Panama tram adventure. On one front at least, the city fathers have displayed some uncharacteristic candour – the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street Gardens, a dysfunctional, crumbling eyesore and the subject of replacement proposals for the best part of 20 years will remain in its current condition and in prime view of visitors and tourists for the foreseeable future. Whoever said it takes 200 years to do anything in Edinburgh clearly hadn’t banked on the present difficult economic climate being blamed for further delay.

Whether everything can be blamed on the economic downturn, however, is entirely debatable. Across the border, the Church of England has been lamenting the imminent closure of a Lottery-based fund that currently gives it £3m per year to maintain its cathedrals. Come January 2010, the money stops and the Church’s overall income from Lottery sources will drop by at least one third. So what is it that is deemed a more important recipient of these funds than this vital part of the UK’s heritage and indeed its tourist industry? You don’t have to be a genius to guess that – yes - the London Olympics is going to hoover up this and every other available penny of Lottery dosh for the next hundred years. It currently costs six quid to get into Winchester Cathedral so, if you’re planning a visit, go now before the charge soars heavenwards.

I’ve mentioned Oliver Chapman Architect’s premises (“Schop”) in Edinburgh’s St Mary’s Street before and I confess to being intrigued by the practice’s latest venture. A banner to be seen of late in the window advertises the availability of further education evening courses in architecture. The first of these starts at the end of this month and runs for six weeks, at the conclusion of which participants should be able to design a small structure. Now I appreciate that for all of you out there who watch Grand Designs and despair when some of Britain’s thickest and greediest people insist they don’t need an architect, this new venture by Ollie and Mark Cousins will have an effect not entirely dissimilar to fingernails being dragged across a blackboard.

But with its small display area, exhibition catalogues for sale and rentable desk spaces for other creative industry types, I would suggest that this is exactly what every city and town in Scotland needs – a veritable architecture centre that people can drop into and take part in events and courses as they please. I would even go so far as to say that if Scotland were to create a network of similar spaces run by people who know something about architecture, we could substantially upgrade public perceptions about the modern built environment. And - in total cost terms - at a fraction of those incurred by the Lighthouse before its widely unlamented demise. So, does anything more need really need to be said on the subject, or do the powers that be in the Scottish Government’s Architecture and Place division require the virtues of this model for the 21st century to be further spelled out before piloting some projects?

I thought we’d try to stay away from Aberdeen this week but no such luck, so let’s get it over with quickly. Sir Ian Wood’s p.r. people have clearly been instructed to get out there and show us all what a good bloke he really is, so in the interests of fairness, here we go. Two years ago Sir Ian established a £50m trust to fund projects in both Scotland and Africa. The trust is dedicated to helping the poor in sub-Saharan Africa and to developing young people in Scotland through volunteering overseas. The latest addition to this scheme is a further investment of £400k over the next three years to deliver an exchange programme for volunteers aged 18-25 in Aberdeen and Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania. The programme will involve teams of nine young people in each city to live and work together on community projects and spending three months in each city. Sir Ian said the aim was to help the volunteers to become “active global citizens” and to encourage long-term community development in the north-east of Scotland and Tanzania.

All genuinely laudable and unquestionably a more 21st century approach to philanthropy than the plutocratic Victoria municipal rebuilding programmes that Sir Ian’s plan for Union Terrace Gardens bring to mind, which makes you wonder why one of Scotland’s richest men feels compelled to destroy one of the least offensive areas of Aberdeen’s centre. Just think, instead of contributing £40m towards the hashing up of the Gardens, he could pay outright for Brisac Gonzalez’ competition-winning scheme for the Peacock Arts Centre to be built on the site and still have £25m to spend on encouraging almost 3500 other kids in Scotland and Africa to become global citizens. I know which I’d rather have, especially as it’s actually achievable.

Image by Olaf.

But then we know that community projects in the north east of Scotland come with golf courses attached and that other great philanthropist, Donald Trump, has been doing his bit of late to strengthen community links in and around his Menie Estate by seeking to compel his neighbours to sell up and move on. All this is not news of course and I had predicted in the last Wrap that Aberdeenshire Council would roll over at its recent meeting and have its tummy tickled by Trumpy’s team. All the Donald was asking in return for his affection was for the Council to grant Compulsory Purchase Order status over his neighbour’s properties but the righteous councillors of Aberdeenshire couldn’t bring themselves to deliver yet. Prior to the meeting it was widely reported that this was a bridge too far for even the Aberdonistan tribal leaders and that they would vote against the proposal but, at the very last minute, they found it within themselves to vote not to vote. Yes, rather than attract Don Combleone’s ire (to be fair, he only threatened to sue them) they chose to defer a decision in the hope that before they are forced to do so, their benevolent master will have made an offer that the troublesome Menie home-owners can’t refuse.

Problem is, whilst the Sunday Times’ Gillian Bowditch seems to have taken the Trump shilling by repeating the entirely spurious line that opposition to this particular project sends out a message to would-be inward investors that they aren’t welcome in Scotland, opposition to the development is growing. Indeed, even though Gillian considers those who question the motives of the developer and the supposed benefits that will accrue from his new-town-with-golf-course-attached to be “misanthropic extremists”, serious money from the likes of soap company Lush – substantial funders of environmental campaigns – and celebrity support in the form of local hero Tilda Swinton are bringing a new and highly visible scrutiny to the Donald’s project.

With such luminaries now backing the ‘Tripping Up Trump’ campaign and the ‘Menie Liberation Front’, it’s a development that’s obviously of some concern to senior Trump-ette, Sarah Malone, who feels ”the motives of these individuals are fundamentally flawed and irresponsible. Left to their own devices, both groups would see the country grind to a halt, the oil industry and economy collapse and people out of work.” Clearly in Sarah’s eyes (and to paraphrase the late Bill Shankly) golf isn’t a matter of life or death: it’s far more important than that.