A SCOTTISH council failed in its legal duty to perform an impact assessment on plans to industrialise part of a park, a lawyer representing campaigners against the proposals has told the Court of Session.
Friends of St Fittick’s Park are challenging Aberdeen City Council’s plans to turn the park – the last green space in the Torry area of the city – into a site called an Energy Transition Zone (ETZ).
ETZ Ltd, which is poised to fund the project, is a private sector-led and not-for-profit company spearheading the north east’s energy transition ambition, receiving governmental support.
Earlier this month, campaigners set up a camp in the park in protest over the plans, which could see a third of the park being used to develop an industrial zone aimed at boosting the renewables sector.
Speaking ahead of the hearing at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on Monday, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman (below) said that the campaign to save the park “is about putting community wellbeing ahead of corporate profits”.
Chapman previously hosted a debate about its future in the Scottish Parliament and has called for Scottish Ministers to intervene to protect it.
She said: “The park is an important place for a lot of people and for nature. The damaging and reckless proposal that would destroy the last green space in Torry is part of an unjust corporate land grab.
“Torry contains some of the worst deprivation in Aberdeen, with life expectancy in the area over a decade lower than in other parts of the city. Losing St Fittick’s will be detrimental for residents’ health and wellbeing, as well for social and environmental justice.
“We must put community wellbeing ahead of corporate profits and protect our green spaces. The loss of St Fittick’s Park does not stack up as part of the just transition we need in Scotland."
The council ‘failed to carry out an equality impact assessment’
Solicitor advocate Mike Dailly, representing FSFP, told the Court of Session in Edinburgh that Aberdeen City Council had failed to carry out an equality impact assessment at any point in relation to the plans.
This amounted, he told the court, to a failure by the council to discharge its responsibilities as a “listed authority” under the Equalities Act, suggesting that if the court accepted this it would render the plans unlawful.
“If I can convince the court of that point, that’s sufficient to make a submission that the decision itself was unlawful,” he explained.
Quoting from the Equalities Act, Dailly explained that as a “listed authority” the council was obliged to carry out an impact assessment in relation to any “proposed new or revised policy or practice.”
He argued that a meeting of the full council on September 11, in which the proposals were discussed, met this condition and triggered an assessment, in that it reached “a significant operational decision in relation to the park”.
He also described the detrimental impact the development of the park would have on “children, older persons, and those with disabilities who use the park”.
Judge Lord Fairlie took issue with Dailly’s interpretation of the Aberdeen City Council meeting of September 11 as reaching a policy decision.
He said that, in his view, it only amounted to the council tasking the chief officer with a “fact-finding exercise” to learn out more about the proposed development by interested parties including, but not limited to, ETZ Limited and the Port of Aberdeen.
He said it would not be possible for the council to carry out an impact assessment until more details about any proposals were known, asking Dailly: “How can it carry out an impact assessment until it knows what it’s carrying out an impact assessment on?”
Dailly also pointed to an “apparent bias” on the part of the council in relation to the proposal to develop the park, saying there was an “interest or apparent interest” in ETZ Limited by Aberdeen City Council co-leader, Christian Allard.
Allard, he explained, was a council-appointed director of a company called One which, he said, is linked to ETZ Limited and has “aligned business goals”. This created, he told the court, an “apparent bias” that should have caused him to withdraw from the September 11 meeting.
However, Lord Fairlie disputed this, pointing out that the council would have been aware of his role in One given it was the council itself that had appointed him to it, and given that Allard had already declared his interest in the company at a previous council meeting.
The judge added that the council vote on September 11 passed 32 votes to 12, and that if Allard had declined to participate, the outcome would have been the same.
Dailly subsequently agreed to withdraw this argument.
The hearing continues.
