WHO ARE ACSEF?  "Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Futures", describe themselves as a "Public-private partership that drives economic development in the region". Board members include well known local businessmen such as Stewart Milne (Stewart Milne Builders), John Michie (Michie's Chemist), Stewart Spence (Marcliffe Hotel owner) and Tom Smith (Chairman of Nessco Group Holdings). Two councillors also sit on the board, they are; Callum McCaig and Anne Robertson. In the 3 years since it's creation ACSEF has cost over half a million pounds of public money and has yet to receive a penny from the private sector. If you ask them about this they point out that the "members of the board give their time" and we all know time is money don't we? They are responsible for the promotion and creation of the City Garden Project Ltd, previously known as The City Square Project. The swift name change a true stroke of genius in response to the public outcry surrounding ACSEF's release of artists impressions containing their plans for UTG. Largely concrete areas surrounded by fully grown trees and an area of grass you could probably mow with scissors wasn't what the people of Aberdeen wanted for UTG it seemed. The CGP Ltd (City Garden Company) are a private company comprising of local businessmen who are trying to push through this ludicrous scheme.  | MYTH BUSTERS BUSTED People are annoyed about plans for UTG and when people are annoyed they get confused and make things up. ACSEF can't have this and so they have kindly published a document in order to dispel these troublesome myths. We have provided the document below for you, please click and download it. Underneath it you will find another document written by our chairman and entitled "Myth Busters Busted". Please also download this. It provides more information on the "Myths" and gives clear evidence they are far from imaginary. It might make you angrier but you won't be confused anymore.
THE THINGS THEY TELL YOUMany arguments are used to justify the The
consultation results show that the public were nearly evenly divided over the Only a small percentage of the local population took part in the consultation: The consultation was run by Acsef and you will find this on their website: “11,943 people went on to submit formal responses that have been recorded in the statistics. This is a huge response rate when compared to similar style consultations. For example, the Edinburgh Tram consultation had just under 3,500 direct responses.” A
silent majority supports the The consultation was not a referendum, there was no obligation to honour the result: The brief for the consultation says the following: “Given one of the stated requirements of the project is to have public support, it is crucial that people are introduced to it in a way that allows for meaningful contribution to the project and input to the design process”. The public took part in the consultation on the understanding that public support was a requirement for the project to proceed. Aberdeen Council had nothing to do with the consultation and are not bound to accept the result: The Council were named in the brief of the consultation as a stakeholder and were regularly briefed on its progress. We do not know how many people outside the City and Shire took part in the consultation, we do not think it is right for outsiders to dictate how the city centre looks: According to the Acsef website 83.5% of those taking part were from Aberdeen or the Shire, 9.9% gave no address, and only 6.6% are known to have come from outside the region.
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