Agenda and draft minutes

The agenda, reports and recording of the meeting associated with this minute can be located here.

Please note that if any changes are made to this minute at the point of approval, these will be outlined in the subsequent minute and this document will not be retrospectively altered.

The Vice Chairperson, Councillor Stirling welcomed everyone to the meeting and advised that she would be chairing the meeting today due to the absence of the Chairperson, Councillor Yuill.

The Clerk advised that apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Yuill and Professor George Boyne.

Members were requested to intimate any declarations of interest or transparency statements in respect of the items on today’s agenda, thereafter the following was intimated:-

(1)      Sir Ian Wood and Jennifer Craw made transparency statements indicating that they had a connection to any issues affecting Opportunity North East, in particular matters relating to the Food Hub, BioAberdeen and the Energy Transition Zone (ETZ), which may arise during the meeting, by virtue of them being Board Members of ONE, Bio Aberdeen Limited, the Food Hub (NES) Limited and ETZ. However, having applied the objective test they indicated that they did not consider that they had an interest to declare and would remain in the meeting. This was because, in practice, funding was allocated by agreement with government and in line with the tripartite agreement;

(2)      Councillor Owen made a transparency statement, by virtue of her being a Board Member of Opportunity North East. Having applied the objective test she had concluded that she did not have an interest to declare and she would remain in the meeting; and

(3)      Councillor Allard made a transparency statement, by virtue of him being a Board Member of Opportunity North East. Having applied the objective test he had concluded that he did not have an interest to declare and he would remain in the meeting.

With reference to article 5 of the minute of the previous meeting of 14 February 2025, the Joint Committee had before it a report by Ross Stevenson, Senior Engineer, Aberdeen City Council and Aigul Gray, ACRD Programme Officer, which sought approval for a project material change request in line with agreed ACRD governance for External Transportation Links to Aberdeen South Harbour (ETLASH).

The report recommended:-

that the Joint Committee –

(a)      approve the material change request (Appendix A) to finalise the virement of £575,000 from the Aberdeen City Council Strategic Transport Appraisal contribution and a further £575,000 from Aberdeen City Council unallocated Digital contribution to support the ETLASH project;

(b)      note that the Governments have conditionally approved the updated Outline Business Case for the ETLASH project;

(c)      note that Aberdeen City Council has agreed to the funding in (a) above and accepts responsibility for managing that funding and any associated risk; and

(d)      note that if any funding shortfall is identified during the development of the Full Business Case, Aberdeen City Council will present options to address it to the Aberdeen City Region Deal Joint Committee through the existing monitoring process.

The Joint Committee resolved:-

to approve the recommendations.

-         COUNCILLOR ANNE STIRLING, Chairperson