Issue - meetings

The Council resolved:-

City Centre Masterplan

(i)             to note that the City Centre Masterplan was approved unanimously in 2015 and agree the ongoing support of Council to the progression of the Masterplan review, noting that a recalibrated Masterplan to include the Beach would be presented to Full Council in August 2022;

Union Street Central

(ii)           to note the content of the Union Street Central Options Appraisal (Appendix A) and agree to implement Option 3 (bus lanes with bus laybys);

(iii)          to instruct the Director of Resources to develop detailed designs for the implementation of Option 3 and further instruct that these designs where possible should allow for conversion to Option 2 (full pedestrianisation with central bicycle and service corridor and servicing laybys) should the Council agree in the future that:-

(a)       suitable 24-hour access arrangements to Union Street Central are in place for people with disabilities and limited mobility; and

(b)       suitable alternative bus and public transport arrangements are available which ensure easy bus passenger access to Union Street Central;

(iv)          subject to (iii) above, to instruct the Chief Officer - Operations and Protective Services to progress the necessary statutory processes to support that implementation;

(v)           to instruct officers to continue to engage with the UK Government about the developing profile of this project and to report back to Council on the outcome of that engagement;

City Centre Traffic Management Plan

(vi)          to note the outcomes of Phase 2 of the Traffic Management Plan (Appendix C) and agree:-

(a)       that, irrespective of any decisions made in relation to Union Street Central, bus, taxi (and private hire) and cycle priority will require to be implemented on Bridge Street, Market Street and Guild Street to achieve the safe and efficient movement of active travel and public transport users through the city centre;

(b)       that, should Union Street Central be closed to general traffic, Schoolhill/Upperkirkgate will require to be pedestrianised between Harriet Street and Flourmill Lane, and right turns prohibited except for buses, taxis (and private hire) and cycles from Union Terrace into Rosemount Viaduct in order to mitigate the impacts of displaced traffic from Union Street Central and to improve the safety of people walking and cycling;

(c)        the detailed designs of the above (as shown in Appendix C) and other necessary interventions, including operational plans for the Merchant Quarter and Belmont Quarter, all as specified in paragraph 3.18, and instruct the Chief Officer – Operations and Protective Services to progress the necessary Traffic Regulation Orders and thereafter move to delivery of the required measures; and

(d)       the initial outcomes of the option appraisal and sifting exercise for Union Street East and West (as shown in Appendix C), and that the remaining options proceed to detailed stakeholder engagement prior to final appraisal;

Union Street Building Condition Survey

(vii)        instruct the Chief Officer - Strategic Place Planning to undertake the Union Street Building Condition Implementation Plan Pilot (Appendix D) and report progress to Full Council in December 2022;

George Street  ...  view the full decision text for item 5

(A)      The Council received a deputation from Mr Hussein Patwa which was in the following terms:-

“My name is Hussein Patwa, a subject matter specialist appointed by the Disability Equity Partnership, a former Scottish Government appointee to the Mobility & Access Committee for Scotland (MACS) and a self-employed accessibility consultant.

I am here today to present a deputation on behalf of Katrina Michie (Acting Chair) of the Disability Equity Partnership and its external members (hereinafter referred to as ‘the parties’), and I thank you for the opportunity to do so.

This deputation covers the future of our City Centre and in particular the discrimination, exclusion, and resulting hardship which will be faced by disabled people if the recommendations in the report are accepted.  May I reiterate something which I said at a previous deputation, disabled people, those with reduced mobility and others are not against change, or the idea of progress.  We only ask that these changes, and ideas for progress are inclusive, that our needs are taken into account, that they are responded to by incorporation into the design and as part of an iterative process without unduly disenfranchising whole sections of our society, now and over the long term.

The report being presented to you today, and its numerous appendices may be within the letter of the Council instruction given in February but it isn’t in the spirit of that instruction.  Nor indeed does DEP feel that the engagement was carried out in good faith.  There have been a great many meetings, but at no time was the intention of officers made clear, DEP was kept under the impression that their concerns would be valued and addressed and that the process and options were open to change.  This was clearly never the case and the original option preferred by the previous administration was always going to be presented as the best deal for the city.  DEP would argue that this is not the case for the reasons contained in the documentation which has been provided to Council along with this deputation.

From the “sifted” options, options 1 and 4 were never going to be viable options as one was no change with a bit of a tidy up and the other would make the usability for all worse than doing nothing, which begs the question why were they presented to us for discussion?  All that remained was option 2 which is incorrectly being called pedestrianisation and option 3 which has buses, taxis and private hire vehicles operating in the central section.

As stated in the report, option 3 is the only option which is acceptable to DEP and NESS as it is the only one which affords anything close to equality of access to the city centre for disabled  and elderly people.  Option 3 causes no material harm to the general public, unlike option 2 which causes great harm to our most vulnerable and marginalised citizens.

There are overarching themes which must be  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5