Aberdeen City Council received a Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Awards for Planning Excellence (UK) for their Net Zero Plan, recognising the incredible effort of imagination and the suspension of disbelief that went into its production. A representative of the RTPI explained the unusual choice, given Aberdeen City Council’s record of extreme sycophancy to the oil industry, ignoring or not consulting with the public and recently rezoning the most biodiverse area in the city, St Fittick’s Park for development:
“The Net Zero Aberdeen Routemap read like a classic thriller. Not since JK Rowling killed off Dumbledore has there been a greater twist than the idea of Aberdeen City Council making decisions that are genuinely beneficial for the environment. These are the people who built the Torry incinerator beside a primary school. This is the council who are in league with the oil billionaire Sirian Woodenhead to pour concrete on the environmental haven of St Fittick’s Park. We felt the very idea that these eejits could tackle climate change and the biodiversity crisis was an audacious and surrealist vision that warranted recognition.”
Aberdeen City Council are currently facing not one but two judicial reviews for their handling of plans to unceremoniously close a large number of libraries in the city and to develop St Fittick’s Park, which they are both a partner in and are also responsible for assessing. A representative of the council asked the public to respect their “artistic process”:
“We feel that hypocrisy and inconsistency is a hallmark of great thinkers and creators. We’d ask the public not to criticise us when we make terrible decisions that impoverish their environment and worsen the city’s civic life. Look at the acclaimed rockstar writer Hunter S Thompson – great writer but known to be a dick – he once turned up at Jack Nicholson’s house on his birthday, fired a flare and left an elk’s heart outside his door. What we’re trying to say is the world needs great works of imaginative policy-fiction like Net Zero Aberdeen Routemap. So the people of Aberdeen are just going to have to take the consequences. Like Jack Nicholson. And the elk.”
The council representative went on to say that they’re working on a sequel to the Net Zero Aberdeen Routemap entitled “Aberdeen City Council Saves the Universe”.
“It’s about how we’re going to crack nuclear fusion by 2050, establish a town twinned with Aberdeen on Mars called Aberdeen-but-on-Mars and genetically engineer a talking dog. We won’t be consulting the public on any of these plans unfortunately though because that shit is hard.”