CAMPAIGNERS who fought the controversial £140 million proposed redevelopment of a city centre park have called for wounds caused by the long-running battle to be healed.
The Friends of Union Terrace Gardens said the organisation would move away from campaigning after Aberdeen City Council rejected plans for the City Garden Project in August.
The scheme had caused great controversy since it was proposed in 2008.
During its annual meeting at the weekend, the group said it had been asked by the city's council to outline its own views for the city centre park.
The group will now aim to support Union Terrace Gardens, modelling itself on a similar effort to protect the city's Duthie Park.
It said: "The latter organisation has attracted funding for major improvements in Duthie Park which have attracted widespread public praise".
Robin McIntosh, the group's new chairman, emphasised the need to "heal the wounds resulting from the controversy over the fate of Union Terrace Gardens."
She said: "We want to make it clear the future of the gardens is in the community's hands, that the decisions we are going to make will be to please the people.
"These are exciting times for Friends of UTG and I am looking forward to a year of progress; big and small. The city centre's green heart deserves to be loved and used, and we are going to help to do this."
Businessman Sir Ian Wood, who had pledged £50m towards the scheme, said after the council vote that he would financially support the project if it was resurrected by next summer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article