Decision to reject hotel schemes
Written: 6th June, 2008
AS ABERDEEN City Council wrestles with the headache of how to address its huge debt, grateful thanks are due to members of the authority’s planning committee for their unwitting assistance on the money-saving front. The committee voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject plans for two hotels near Aberdeen Airport, despite a clear recommendation from their officials to approve the schemes.
The councillors, seemingly oblivious to the dearth of hotel rooms in the city, decided, in their wisdom, that the hotels might cause traffic problems in the future and the plans should, therefore, be rejected. This may well be democracy at work; elected politicians exercising their right to decide what is right for the city, but it doesn’t make the decision any more sensible. The committee convener, Scott Cassie, described the plans as being “all over the place”, which brings into question the expertise and judgment of the planning officials paid to scrutinise applications before placing them in front of the planning committee. If these officials are so inept that they could not spot such a fundamentally-flawed application, perhaps we could do without them and just invite developers to submit their plans straight to a councillor of their choosing. Time and money saved. Problem solved.