Articles, Research & presentations

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"What links an ancient church, an ancient well and award-winning wetlands? The answer of course is St Fittick’s Park. Nestling between Balnagask, thnew harbour at Nigg Bay and Balnagask golf course, St Fittick’s Park is an ancient green space in Torry. Before the last Ice Age the River Dee would have flowed into the sea through here. Occasionally, Mesolithic flint tools are found by archaeologists and show the first signs of human presence here (about 7000 years ago)."

Read the full article here: http://www.shmu.org.uk/sites/all/libraries/pdf.js/web/viewer.html?file=/sites/default/files/magazines/torry_spring_2021_web.pdf

Friends of the park David Hunter and Susan Smith wrote this for the Scottish Wildlife Trust magazine:

"You could be forgiven for not knowing about Aberdeen’s award-winning wetland and reedbeds in the south of the city. Squashed between Industrial land, sewage works and one of the most deprived communities in Scotland, St Fittick’s Park is a (now threatened) brainchild of the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) as a way of making space for biodiversity and for protecting the local people. 

The park is a relatively small urban green space right next to Torry; a community whose eastern section bordering onto the park is one of the 10 most deprived in Scotland. Being the only accessible greenspace to this vulnerable area (which is predominantly tower blocks and flats), the park is the community’s garden and its little piece of wild land, much loved and much used. It benefits people in Torry in all the ways that have become so obvious to all of us over the past year, providing relief and access to nature – particularly as the disproportionate effects of COVID on the poor have taken such a toll. . . ."

To continue reading click to download at the foot of this page:

Friends of the Park members Susan Smith and Lesley-Anne Mulholland wrote the following article for Commonweal in October 2020. It chronicles the local anger that rose up when the news of the proposals that threatened the park:

"THAT ANNOUNCEMENT in the notices people received through  their front doors in June that St Fittick’s Park and Doonies had been  included in the Council’s Proposed Local Development Plan 2020 (PLDP) as  opportunity sites (OP 56 and 61 respectively) for development, where an  industrial development, an Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) would be  favoured took the Torry community by angry surprise. Surprise ,as there  had been no community consultation whatsoever regarding this. 

They  were part of the bid for a much larger area of greenspace/greenbelt  land, submitted by the Harbour Board at the end of Consultation period  for PLDP’s precursor. That was not open to public consultation."

Read the full article here: https://sourcenews.scot/hands-off-our-green-spaces-in-torry-a-just-or-unjust-transition/