This is how Lib Dem Deputy Leader Steve Delaney described plans to replace St Nicholas House at the Council meeting on 1st May 2013. The plans are for a modern office development and hotel with a public square in Broad Street.

The funding mechanism works on a lease back system over 35 years and returns the site to the Council at the end of that time. It offers the Council a rental income but the Council, in leasing back the development, takes on all risks associated with this venture. It is of course impossible to say how buoyant the economy will be or indeed what the demand will be for specific types of office and/or retail space over a 35 year period.

Steve said, “All the designs before us were uninspiring and failed to respect the unique historic setting of Marischal College and Provost Skene’s House. I’m fully in favour of redeveloping this site, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to regenerate our city centre and we need to get it right. We had the opportunity to see something iconic delivered in this unique location and instead the Council settled for a drab design, simply replacing one eyesore with another. This was the best of a bad bunch and the Council should have been visionary enough to ask for a better bunch”.

The Council had put this forward as being no more than the choice of a preferred bidder. Steve reminded councillors that “The authority to finalise this deal has been delegated to officers, so it need not come back to Council. Be clear about it, this is about much more than selecting a preferred bidder, it’s pretty much a done deal if you support the recommendation”. Other concerns raised in debate related to the practicality and deliverability of the pedestrianisation of Broad Street.

The Liberal Democrats opposed the proposals on a number of grounds. Councillors had been given insufficient time to digest the report, with some only having seen it the morning of the meeting. The public had been given no say in what was proposed for their city centre. The business case appeared weak and the designs uninspiring. Accordingly the Lib Dem Group proposed that the Council go back out to the market asking potential developers to come up with something better.

Steve continued, “This was a rushed decision where there was no requirement for expediency. Labour, Conservative and Independent councillors were determined to push this through regardless. Regardless of your opinion on the design, the risk to public finances is significant and they will have to answer to the public for their folly”.

Steve requested his dissent be recorded in the Council minute.