The 2015 City Centre masterplan noted that Aberdeen’s core should be ‘like no other place,’ so it is encouraging to see some of those aspirations finally becoming a reality, with more more truly city-defining infrastructure projects taking place in the city than have for the last 45 years.
In addition to the implementation of the City Living proposals, produced by Savills for the Council to rejuvenate the centre and encourage more city centre residents, projects like the new South harbour, the western peripheral road (AWPR), the new Exhibition Centre, and the improvement of local rail links to join up outlying towns and plug them firmly into the city, are all helping Aberdeen become an internationally distinctive city.
The Strategic Development Plan for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire offers a really useful blueprint for how a coastal region with one metropolitan centre should cater for its needs and plan for sustainable growth: a region where 75 per cent of more than 60,000 homes will be delivered in four strategic growth areas by 2040.
Acknowledging the challenges of delivering large-scale strategic housing sites, the plan also supports further housing allocations through emerging Local Development Plans across both city and shire.
The key focus of Aberdeenshire’s emerging Local Development Plan, to be consulted on shortly, is the need for more houses. If adopted it will effectively triple the housing land obligation across the county from 800 to 2,500. There is also a preference for delaying any review of the Green Belt to 2022 until after the new by-pass has had time to bed in.
Meanwhile, Aberdeen city’s own emerging Local Development Plan is also likely to be opened for consultation soon. Zooming in on the Council’s planning portal, there has been a lot of activity in recent years, to start delivering on the 22 key physical projects highlighted in the City Centre Masterplan.
For example, both tiers of the Development Plan emphasise the importance of the city centre for the region’s retail needs.The 350,000 sq ft extension to Union Square continues to demonstrate market confidence in the retail draw of the city.
A Planning Permission in Principle application has also been submitted for 250 units on the south side of the River Dee. This will tap into the City Council’s aspiration to deliver a new footbridge across the river, to plug Torry (one of the key drivers of the city's 19th-century expansion) very firmly into the modern urban core.
Finally the Dee Quarter, Aberdeen's fish-packing district, has presented an opportunity for Savills to work with Manse and its joint venture partners Palmer Capital to plan a new mixed-use residential, business and leisure quarter between Union Square and the River, right in the centre of the city.
It offers views over one of the liveliest functioning city centre harbours in the UK, a 19th-century core of unique historic buildings and direct access to the north of Scotland’s largest public transport interchange.
Taken together, a series of projects like this, supported by the Council through its Masterplan and facilitated by the construction of the new harbour and the inevitable impact this will have on the wider Market Street area, can really begin to reshape existing parts of the city into new districts on the Aberdonian mental map.
The urban planning set piece of Union Street still largely defines the core area and there are plenty opportunities along its length for new development to complement the Capitol (Scottish Property Award’s City Regeneration Project of the Year) and the Silver Fin, and for developments elsewhere in the city to connect new retail, office, residential and leisure uses across the spine of Union Street to the north and south.
2018 was a year of big ideas and big projects. With the city recently confirming its top 10 UK position for quality of life, perhaps 2019 should be the year that developers think much more about making this a city ‘like no other place’.
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