Union Terrace Gardens
Type	Public Garden
Location	Aberdeen, Scotland
Coordinates	57°8′49″N 2°6′12″W / 57.14694°N 2.10333°W / 57.14694; -2.10333
Opened	1879
Operated by	Aberdeen City Council
Status	Open all year

Union Terrace Gardens is a park in the centre of Aberdeen, Scotland^[1].

The park covers one hectare to the side of Union Terrace, off Aberdeen's main thoroughfare, Union Street. As a natural amphitheatre, the park is used for concerts and leisure activities, as well as providing somewhere to relax. On the park's north side is a floral crest of the Aberdeen's coat of arms.

At the Union Street end of the gardens are a group of mature Elm trees, approximately 200 years old, that are remnants of a site once known as Corbie Haugh. Corbie is a Scots word for crow, and crows still nest at the site; Haugh means a low-lying meadow in a river valley, the river in this instance being the Den Burn.

Development of Union Terrace Gardens

The future of the Gardens is currently under debate. Plans for a contemporary art centre had been granted full planning permission by the city council for a new building to be set into the gardens. More recently, Sir Ian Wood has proposed an alternative plan to cover over the gardens and the neighbouring road and railway with a six-acre civic square which would be at the same level as the surrounding Union Street and Union Terrace.

Option A — "Northern Light" Centre for Contemporary Art

Peacock Visual Arts has been working in partnership with Aberdeen City Council to develop a centre for contemporary arts in Aberdeen. The development, designed by London based architects, Brisac Gonzales, is designed to be built into the existing slopes in the Gardens underneath the Robert Burns statue. The building, which is budgeted at costing £13.5 million, would contain a gallery, TV studio, print studio, restaurant and offices for Peacock staff and provide a base for Aberdeen City Council's Arts Development and Arts Education teams as well as potentially extra space for Citymoves dance agency.

The project, as of November 2008 has received full planning permission, secured £9.5 million of public funding from Aberdeen City Council, Scottish Enterprise, and the Scottish Arts Council and was scheduled to break ground late November 2009.

Option B — "Aberdeen's 'New' Civic Heart"

Local oil tycoon, Sir Ian Wood, pledged up to £50 million of his own money to back a scheme to "ensure the economic survival of the city centre".^[2] The current version of the plan involves filling in the Gardens and so raising the Denburn Valley to street level, creating a paved square which is to be a "cross between a grand Italian piazza and a mini Central Park." A technical appraisal carried out by the architectural firm, Halliday Fraser Munro, estimated the project would cost around £140 million pounds to build. Sir Ian Wood's loan is conditional that his investment is matched by the City of Aberdeen. This proposal has found both local support and opposition.^[3]

The result of the consultation showed that 55% of thsoe consulted were against the City Square proposals with 44% in favour. Nonetheless, ASCEF (Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Futures), decided to press ahead with this project and asked the City Council for endorsement to proceed to a further stage, an international design competition. On 19th May, Aberdeen City Council agreed that the City Sqaure project should proceed and that the Peacock proposals should not.

Widespread anger at this decision has led to the formation of a campaign group known as Friends of Union Terrace Gardens http://www.FriendsOfUTG.org. They held a mass picnic in the gardens on 12th June 2010 which attracted over a thousand people and generated nearly 400 letters to councillors.

References

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