St fittick has decided to share some of his knowledge for the benefit of developers.
How to steal a public park in 8 easy steps
Are you a young up and coming developer who wants to make a name for yourself (not to mention a little cash!) in the new Net Zero wild west? Well look no further than this handy How To guide. We’re sharing the lessons from the attempts to steal the environmental haven of St Fittick’s Park in Torry, Aberdeen in the name of an “Energy Transition Zone”. We’ll have you making big plans at the taxpayer’s expense in no time. Viva la steal!
1. Make friends of impeccable character and influence.
Net zero means governments throwing money at the wall to see what sticks. If you’re in the right room at the right time you can get your hands on some of that sweet just transition dime. The first step for our plucky park-stealers Opportunity North East, or ONE, was getting a seat at the table. ONE is a private sector organisation made up of oil and gas interests, the chamber of commerce, the Harbour Board, both universities and Scottish Enterprise. Obviously, they have the expertise to make decisions about local economic development, so they got voting rights in the Aberdeen City Region Deal.Make sure to include a couple of councillors: they (in theory) make the decisions in a democracy, and they’re useful as fall guys if things go tits up. If you shmooze you can’t lose.
2. Promise the earth.
It never hurts to make big promises. In the Aberdeen City Region Deal the Scottish Government pledged a contribution of £125m, the Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire Councils £20m and the private sector contribution was set at £556.2m. Of course, this private sector money has yet to materialise, but it’s good to show ambition.¹
3. Don’t pick a wealthy park.
You have a seat around the table and a finger in the pie, now is the time to dream big. In Aberdeen this meant ONE setting their sights on St Fittick’s Park beside the newly built Aberdeen South Harbour in Torry. A condition of the harbour being built was that St Fittick’s Park would be protected and enhanced. You have to make people forget these promises. So don’t pick a park in a wealthy area with a well-connected and resourced local population. You don’t want a park any member of the royal family has ever visited. Not a park with an obelisk, nor a park frequented by cavapoos.
You want a park where people have already seen lots of development and are exhausted and demoralised from fighting. Torry is perfect: the park is adjacent to a wastewater treatment plant, near an incinerator and is surrounded by fenced in toxic green hills that used to be landfill sites. No need to worry about the open letter by 22 health care professionals in Aberdeen in 2021 that said the park was essential for the mental and physical health of the inhabitants of the economically deprived area of Torry. This is the park for you.
4. Make the planning system work for you.
The planning system is notoriously convoluted and full of loopholes, so you just gotta find the right one for you. Aberdeen found a good one. ONE’s partner, the Port of Aberdeen worked with the planning consultants Barton Willmore (now Stantec) who had published a brochure promising they could get anything through the planning process. And boy did they deliver. In early 2019 there was a 10-week consultation period on the Main Issues for Aberdeen’s new Local Development Plan. Barton Willmore (now Stantec) got a bid in for all the undeveloped green space around the harbour, including St Fittick’s Park, for harbour related industrial development. The bid went in at 13.45 on the very last day of the 10-week consultation period. No time for any organisations, the public or the councillors to scrutinise the rezoning and object. And would you believe, it worked! This scrappy manoeuvre shaped Aberdeen’s official planning policy. Playing by the rules is for chumps, kids.
5. Use those connections.
This is where your friends in high places come in. They know how to make you look good. Once the bid came in to the council a senior officer commissioned Barton Willmore (now Stantec) to carry out a feasibility study for building an energy transition zone on the park. You’ve got to keep up to date with Scottish Government policies. No way would it sanction “industrial expansion” in a biodiverse residential zone that’s in the bottom 10% for multiple social deprivation. “Energy Transition” is much more 21st century, what with the climate emergency all that oil and gas burning has caused. Don’t worry that councillors didn’t ask for this study. Just check your friend the senior officer has delegated powers, and they will be able to put it forward in the development plan. This feasibility study made it into the council’s local development plan, helped along by planners changing long established policies to get it through. The opposition councillors got told about it in February, 2020, just before the meeting to rubber stamp the LDP. You’re just helping the wheels of local democracy to turn, baby.
You’re just helping the wheels of local democracy to turn, baby.
6. Get the taxpayer to pay.
So, the park is rezoned, you’ve gotten your vision put into the local development plan. Time to reward all your hard work with a little taxpayers’ money. Learn from Aberdeen oil billionaire, former Chair of Scottish Enterprise and Chair of the board of ONE Sir Ian Wood, who took a wee trip to Holyrood in February 2021. A freedom of information request shows an officer of the Scottish Government assisted Sir Ian in developing a business case for an Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) on all the land the harbour board had asked for. ONE’s energy wing became ETZ ltd, the deserving recipients of £53m in taxpayers’ money: £27m from Westminster and £26m from Scottish Government. Hey, trashing a park ain’t cheap.
7. Technologies come and go, just keep grasping at straws.
The ETZ business plan was a smorgasbord of renewable technologies, throwing hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, manufacturing components for offshore wind and solar (haar haar) into the mix. The Council isn’t called an epicentre of hydrogen folly for nothing – nonsense about hydrogen replacing oil and gas kept all those important decision makers happy. There were some casualties of the creative planning process: ETZ’s partners ERM Dolphyn and Vattenfall pulled out of their hydrogen developments in 2024 (after making off with their own fistfuls of public dosh). Not a problem! There are tonnes of things you can build on a beautiful, biodiverse greenspace. You can make, eh… anchors for offshore wind turbines! Subsea cables! Nobody’s going to notice that the subsea cables have gone to Nigg and Hunterston, or that the anchor firm has significant financial problems. These plans may sound uninspired and not worth the hassle of digging up a much needed public park. But don’t listen to the haters. It’s your park now.
8. Tell the elected decision makers not to sweat the small stuff.
Now you just need to get the council to approve planning permission in principle for digging up the park before you proceed with specific planning applications. Yes, there has been a huge local outcry and international attention on the theft of the park, but at the planning hearing tell the council not to WORRY. The development will bring JOBS (maybe) and that’s all that matters. Yes, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency put in an objection because the area is a flood zone, but they didn’t mean it. Look at all the work you’ve put in to getting hold of the park. It’s too late to stop it now.
We hope you found this guide to stealing a public park useful and it can set you on your own path to net some sweet Net Zero moola. If you want to check in about the campaign to save the park (losers) visit the Friends of St Fittick’s Park website. Happy destruction! 1 This one might be tricky to replicate as Audit Scotland changed the rules about the role of the private sector in city deals in 2020 after expressing scepticism about whether the enormous financial pledges would be realised: https://audit.scot/uploads/docs/report/2023/nr230622_city_deals.pdf