Local Memories

Community Comments

After some ptsd the view alone has helped deal with it despite the air pollution from previous years. Bad enough with what is happening already but the industrialisation of the rest of our last green space in Torry will have a detrimental effect re sight & sound. Torry is surrounded on 3 sides by industrial units please just leave us this last bit!

I have lived in Torry for many years, my husband and myself and my daughter, love living in Torry. My daughter went to Oscar Road Nursery then to Walker Road Primary School, then to Torry Academy. We all love living in Torry.

We especially love our lovely St. Fittick’s Park we have walked there and my daughter has played in this area as she was growing up. I found our lovely park a great benefit to myself and my family, during my last few years as I had to deal with having breast cancer and surgery. And having our lovely green space behind the house, has helped me greatly keep my mind and body healthy and surviving. Also due to the pandemic has definitely kept me going through these tough times. My lovely daughter Stacy has taken up photography during this pandemic and has been taking photos while we were walking round Torry Battery and St. Fittick’s Park, her photos were in Aabodys Torry.

My other half suffers from depression and he uses this space as his safe place where he can go and walk off his feelings and clear his head. He doesn't drive so its not like he can jump in the car and drive to a park or the beach. Without this space he will suffer badly with having no safe place to clear his head and get the exercise that helps his mental health.

My concern would be a constant grabbing of greenspace in Torry that appears to be considered acceptable. Torry appears to be getting squeezed and industrialised from every side. Each venture accompanied by false stories/promises of what benefit this venture will bring to the community. If it was all as good as they make out other areas of the city would be clambering for the incinerator or the ETZ etc.

Went to meetings to keep Victoria school being closed and Torry academy and the incinerator being built now taking our green spaces of which benefits our physical and mental health you do get despondent at this council as they appear not to listen to our worries or concern.

Torry is an extremely built up area and our green spaces are the only places we can interact with nature and benefit from its calming effects. Children, especially those living in flats, need to be able to experience at close quarters plants, insects and small animals.

It’s the only green space in walking distance I can take my dog and we go for a walk together. Without SFP, we will be walking round the streets of Torry which doesn’t really do much for our sense of well-being

It's a great sanctuary for humans, wildlife, pets. It has a little bit of wildness left in a city that is slowly losing all its green space.
The views, the history, the space - It is a wonderful place
As ACC like to constantly remind everyone, we live in what they call an area of multiple deprivation - our green space is one of the few assets the community has - if they take this away from us, they will have to add green space deprived to their list of deprivations in Torry
Loss of another bit of biodiversity in the city... Resulting in loss of plant, insect, bird and animal species... Bad for the environment and, ultimately, bad for humans. Just short-sighted.
The beauty of the area the need for wildlife to have an area. What was the children farm is much needed as a place for city children to see where their food comes from. Sport and nature area for local schools. A place to sit and watch the sea, birdlife, and plant life at its best. No noise from industry in a housing area. Tourist stop outside my house to see the cliffs, view they will not came to this area if a industrial unit is the re.
We had little green space to start with, they have taken our beach and now want to take the park that goes with it! We need our green space for our physical and mental wellbeing! Don’t even get me started on the proximity of the incinerator to the school and housing in general! Torry gets all of the rubbish and as far as I can see no benefits!
An important area for breeding and migrating birds. Also a haven for plants and other wildlife. Scientific studies prove such places are not only of great importance to wildlife but also to the well being of humans. Exercise for people and dogs and a refreshing place to help with mental health, all within a few minutes from the concrete jungle that ls Aberdeen. ln my lifetime, we have lost Old Torry, the Grumps, the Bay of Nigg and now possibly St Fittick’s Park. "Torry Lives Matter"
The walkways were put in place so that so the disabled community and the elderly can easy access the park in wheelchairs, walking aids etc, Kids can ride their bikes, families with prams. it was also the children from the Torry schools that choose what play items would be good for the park. There was bushes placed in park to attract the wildlife back to this beautiful area. We wanted a community area that everyone can use and enjoy it. We have a large elderly population in this area which they use daily for walks and to see the wildlife. It would be so wrong of ACC to take this away to build industrial buildings on, when just 5 mins there is a massive industrial site with plenty space to build this buildings.

We can’t carry out all the good ideas people have to make the park even better than it is if it is developed. Slap in the face for people who contributed theirs to what’s been done so far ( and that’s nothing to do with the DCMP).

The Agreement between ACC and Aberdeen Harbour Board under section 69 of the Local Government (Scotland ) Act was that there would be 10 improvements to the park , all over it ( shown in the map in the Detailed Mitigation and Compensation Plan) to make up for the ruined view of the Bay of Nigg and loss of access to it . If we lose the park these can’t be carried out. Unjust and illegal.

And the schedule of the Aberdeen Harbour Revision Order 2016 which had to be passed before the harbour could be constructed says that temporary construction sites like Walker Park must be out back after its finished and that the East Tullos burn wetlands must be protected to ensure they still work. What happens to them if they are developed? Unjust and illegal as well. Broken promises.
I will miss it for walking my dogs, plus don't understand why they planted all those tree's only to dig them up again. Torry has enough with the waterworks and the incinerator.

Harbour board ain't got enough money or influence in the toon I reckon.

I am most concerned about the lack of democracy, scrutiny and accountability surrounding this plan. It is another example of Aberdeen City Council going the way big business wants without any form of public consultation, or any consideration of the public interest. Sadly, it is one example among many. The Torry incinerator is being built to create profit for the waste industry. The money for the city region deal went to support the oil and gas industry, though the Paris Accord should have made clear that this was not a very clever way to invest in the future for either the City or the region. Before the pandemic began the Council had borrowed 237% of its annual revenue. It has to pay back 10% of its annual revenue to service that debt. The money borrowed has not gone on improving services, but on speculative enterprises that are unlikely to benefit the citizens of Aberdeen. The green-belt is irreplaceable. What happens there should be subject to extensive public scrutiny and public debate, not destroyed for the short term profits of the very few.

What a sad indictment to think our council have no thought for the well being of the people who depend on that green space. No thought for all the wildlife that resides in that area. The people who live in Torry have just been rode roughshod over. What happened to Torry is an area of deprivation. I am concerned about the health and wellbeing of the residents of Torry. There are plenty of other brown sites lying empty that could be utilised. Please ACC give some consideration to the wellbeing of the people of Torry and of the wild life using that area.

My daughter is special needs and this area means I don't have to travel miles for a safe space for her to explore and play, it also is a place that enables her to have some sort of independence as she grows, she meets other members of her community and is helping awareness and understanding of different abilities etc it also I hope is where she is going to find her friends that will grow with her.

I don’t stay in Torry anymore but I do think this is wrong there’s little enough in Torry
Its a unique space in Aberdeen city and particularly for torry where not everyone as access to travel further a field to access green space which is also right by the sea and this makes it unique. Its used by a multitude of people from dog walkers, kids on bikes skaters, elderly people taking a stroll. Not to mention the wildlife deer, foxes, ducks I saw a barn owl a couple of times last week, herons visits all the time as do the resident ducks and oyster catchers.

I too would like to add the way it's been done . The bid for the land that ended up as OP56 and 61 was done by the Harbour Board on the very last day of the consultation period for what was the precursor to the Proposed Local Development plan. There was no chance to comment on the bid until it had become part of that Plan. How that happened is a mystery too, though it's easy to make some informed guesses. The Council's own assessment of the bid classified it as speculative and undesirable and the its Environmental report condemned it on environmental and cultural/historical grounds too. Even with mitigation (and how on earth would that be achieved) the damage would be reduced from "significantly severe" to "severe".

There is not going to be anywhere to walk your dog or even the children, that place is well used and should be left that way. We don't need anymore industrial places in Torry and also it wouldn't be nice if our so called New Harbour ever gets, who would want to come off the Big Liners and see shit like that, so I'm so dead against it.

More than ample vacant space in nearby industrial estates - keep St Fitticks Park green and free from development.

Sad there's going to be the loss of a beautiful green space full of wildlife. You can imagine the outcry if Duthie Park or Johnston Gardens were to be concreted over and we probably have more wildlife there than those combined.

Exactly and folk here feel defeated from past experiences of being put upon with no choice and sticking plaster solutions to some of the areas problems.