An “Economic Justification”?

Development and Regeneration Services at the Council inform me that “detailed negotiations” continue with Buchanan Partnership Ltd. Together, they’re working on an “economic justification” for the way that they want to fund the expansion plan that would cause huge disruption to traffic in the town centre and demolish one of our most beloved public spaces, the Royal Concert Hall steps.

The economic justification is expected to be ready in late summer this year. When it is, they’ll put it to a meeting of the full Council to decide what to do next.

I’ll be ready to scrutinise in detail the business case for risking £80 million of tax payer’s money on this misguided development. As a Glasgow MSP, I will do all I can to let city-dwellers know about the plans for their town centre and to hold ruling Councillors and council officials to account.

Funny financing

Still no sign of a detailed planning application for the Buchanan Galleries expansion as the developer and Glasgow City Council try to figure out how to pay for it in the depressed financial climate.

Their hoped for answer?  Tax Increment Financing.

In simple terms, the Council would borrow £80 million to pay for the development, with the intention that this be repaid by Buchanan Partnership Ltd over time, from the rental of the newly created commercial space. This would amount to the Council taking out a commercial loan to bankroll a private development and securing the massive debt on the city’s hard-pressed tax payers. This absurd financing method is quite common in the USA but has not been used in Scotland to date.

Last month, I questioned John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth about this form of financing.  I asked him what criteria the Scottish Government would use for the approval or rejection of local authority proposals to employ TIF.  Mr Swinney replied that “any decision on local authority proposals to use tax increment financing will be made on a value for money basis. Scottish Futures Trust have been asked to develop a set of criteria to inform this assessment process.”

I also tried to persuade him that this scheme is wildly irresponsible, since it essentially gambles public money (which should be spent on protecting public services) on the developer’s ability to fill the new shopping space with paying tenants – while shops are lying empty across the city centre and many local shopping areas. If the Council wants to support genuine local businesses and strong communities across Glasgow it shouldn’t start with another new ‘mall’ in the city centre.

I look forward, with a slightly sinking feeling, to finding out whether the business case bring put together by council officials will be enough to persuade ruling councillors and the Scottish Government that an £80 million bank loan, that would further increase Glasgow’s dependency on the multinational retail giants, can be made to look the least bit sensible.

Dude, where’s my bus stop?

I met with Stagecoach this morning to discuss the appalling proposals for Buchanan Bus Station, and I left the meeting even more opposed to the plan than before.

I knew of course that there had been no attempt to discuss the plan with bus operators before it was agreed in principle at the City Council. I knew that the construction would hugely disrupt just about every bus route in the city centre, and most of the rest of the traffic too. I knew that it would deprive the city of one of the best-used public spaces, the concert hall steps.

But one aspect I hadn’t quite twigged was how the new concrete-encased bus station would work once it was built. Apparently the plan is that each bus would be allocated a stance as it arrived, with the result that passengers would turn up for their bus without having a clue where to wait. You might know where you’re going, which bus to catch and when it’s due to leave, but you’ll need to be super-nimble to get yourself (along with shopping, children, buggies etc) to the right place in time.

This scheme tends to work OK with many railway stations, where all the platforms lead off the concourse as at Queen St or Central. But at a bus station you often need to walk right round the outside to get from one stance to another.

For a comparison, imagine that the bus stops along Hope St and Renfield St kept swapping around every five or ten minutes – you turn up in the city centre for your bus and have to keep wandering around in the hope of finding the right stop. Next time you’re looking for the same bus there’s no point going back to the same place – you just have to start the hunt all over again.

If anyone wasn’t convinced that this plan was a nonsense, surely this settles it. Never mind going back to the drawing board – this whole scheme should simply be scrapped if the city is remotely serious about public transport.

Concert Hall / Bus Station update

On 18th November, I submitted the following motion to the Scottish Parliament in order to raise other MSPs’ awareness of the damaging proposals to build on top of Buchanan Bus Station and scrap the Royal Concert Hall Steps.

S3M-05227 Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and Buchanan Bus Station
That the Parliament notes that over a year has passed since Glasgow City Council granted outline planning permission for construction of a multistorey car park on top of Buchanan Bus Station, to expand the retail space at Buchanan Galleries by up to two thirds and to demolish the popular Royal Concert Hall steps and replace them with a shopping centre entrance; further notes the objections made to the planning application relating to the bus station by Strathclyde Partnership for Transport and Transport Scotland and the concerns expressed by the city’s major bus operators; shares their concerns that building on top of the bus station would diminish the attractiveness of the space and limit future flexibility and the development of bus services; acknowledges that improvements in accessibility to the Royal Concert Hall and better maintenance of the steps are desirable but rejects the idea that this requires the removal of the open, communal space of the steps and their replacement with another commercial facade; agrees that it is vital that public awareness of these plans is greatly increased, and calls on Glasgow City Council to assume responsibility for encouraging widespread public debate and engagement with the ongoing planning process for these major and contentious projects for Glasgow city centre.

So far, the motion has been signed by Dr Bill Wilson MSP, Bill Kidd MSP, Bob Doris MSP, Gil Paterson MSP and Robin Harper MSP. If you’d like to help the campaign, you could contact your MSPs who have not yet signed the motion and ask them to do so. Everyone in Scotland has a Constituency MSP who represents their local area and a number of Regional MSPs. You could also e-mail to your Glasgow councillors to seek their view about the proposals. You e-mail any of your political representatives direct from www.writetothem.com or find their full contact details at www.scottish.parliament.uk or www.glasgow.gov.uk

In other campaign news, I met recently with First Bus Director, Mark Savelli to discuss his concerns about serious and lengthy disruption to bus services and intensified traffic congestion that could result from construction at Buchanan Bus Station. I’ve also been in touch with bus companies Arriva and Stagecoach with a view to meeting up to discuss their similar concerns. I will also be meeting with SPT chair, Councillor Alistair Watson, to talk about the proposals.

Finally, my colleague Green Councillor Nina Baker – a stalwart opponent of the Buchanan proposals since they were first tabled – and some good friends spent a reasonably dry Saturday afternoon carrying out a straw poll of the public in the vicinity of Buchanan Bus Station and the Royal Concert Hall Steps. The results are presently being collated – watch this space!

Keep Buses out of the basement, and Save The City Steps!

What’s Happening?

In October 2008, Glasgow City Council granted outline planning permission for the owners of Buchanan Galleries to demolish their existing multi-storey car park and rebuild it across the road, on top of Glasgow’s main bus hub, Buchanan Street Bus Station. A bridge would cross Killermont Street to connect the new multi-storey carpark with the Galleries.

Buchanan Galleries plans to build a huge extension to the shopping centre where the car park is at present, as well as constructing an additional building in the space between the existing centre and Dundas House on Buchanan Street. This would increase the total retail space by up to 66% or 65,000 square metres and create an overall increase of 250 parking spaces. They would demolish the Royal Concert Hall steps and constructing a new “landmark” (!) entrance to the shopping centre.

Back before the global credit crunch, before the collapse of UK interest rates and house prices, before the banks were bailed out by indebting the taxpayer to the tune of hundreds of billions of pounds, before unemployment surged and before the UK economy entered a recession, some people might still have thought it was a good idea to further increase Glasgow’s dependence on attracting shoppers for economic growth.

However, the recent global economic catastrophe has clearly demonstrated that the cycle of boom and bust is far from over and that endless consumerism based on credit and debt is simply not sustainable.

It may be hard to believe, but despite this wake-up call, the ruling Labour councillors have every intention of ploughing on with this absurd development.

The popular, social public space of the Royal Concert Hall steps would be replaced by yet another private, commercial space.

Construction on top of Glasgow’s central bus station could result in its closure for up to two years, causing traffic chaos in an already jammed city centre. When construction is complete, Buchanan St Bus Station will be enclosed in a basement, no matter how well-designed – or not – the lighting and ventilation systems are.

Transport Scotland and Strathclyde Partnership for Transport have both objected to the plan to build on the Bus Station, as it will make it less attractive to use, make access and integration with other modes of transport more difficult and potentially create safety hazards. Glasgow’s three biggest bus operators, First, Arriva and Stagecoach have all expressed serious concerns about the potential for congestion chaos during construction, disruption to services and the long-term unsuitability of the new facility which would limit capacity for expected growth in bus travel. In an editorial entitled Chaos on the Buses The Herald newspaper says of the planned ‘integrated transport hub’,
“many believe the end result will be an inferior facility unlikely to attract extra passengers. The dubious objective of all this disruption is to double the size of the Buchanan Galleries, transforming it into one of the largest shopping complexes in Britain at the very moment when the nation’s shopping habits may be changing.”
As a Glasgow MSP, I couldn’t agree more with all these concerns. Fundamentally, Glasgow City Council should be making it more easier and more appealing to make greener choices, not harder. When is it going to stop putting cars first and give priority to climate-friendly bus and rail users, cyclists and pedestrians?

What can we do?

Although these proposals have been given outline planning approval, the Council has not gone out of its way to publicise the plans. Just two members of the public objected to the outline planning application – I’m quite sure a billboard advertising the plans in Buchanan St Bus Station might have generated a few more responses.

I want every single Glaswegian to become aware of what is intended for Buchanan Street Bus Station and the Royal Concert Hall. Detailed planning applications for each separate element of the plans are still to be submitted. There remains no definite timescale for this but it must be within three years of their receiving outline planning permission. In this case the devil isn’t in the detail, it’s in the very principle of what is being planned. But the next stage of the planning process will still provide an opportunity for people to make their voices heard.

Over the coming months, I’ll be doing everything I can to secure the future improvement of Buchanan St Bus Station as an open-air, welcoming public transport hub and of the City’s steps as a public space to meet, eat and people-watch in the heart of the town centre.