WHY I LOVE UTG

I've been using UTG since I began working in the Rosemount area in the late 1990s. When the weather's good there is nowhere better to spend my lunch hour - eating my sandwich, reading the paper or a book - away from the bustle of the city. I can enjoy the peace, the quiet, the beauty of the gardens and surrounding area... just relax and rejuvenate before going back to work especially if I've had a stressful morning.

Each season brings a change to the Gardens and even if I'm just passing by at street level I often stop for a few minutes to look down and enjoy the view or take a photo if I have my camera with me. The display of colour on the leaves of the trees in Autumn is simply stunning, the floral displays in Summer are beautiful and a tribute to the gardeners who work on them.

I walk past the Gardens at various times of the day...anytime between early morning and 8pm all year round...and if there is a large amount of misuse and gatherings by  "undesirables" (as some would have us believe!) then I can honestly say that I've never witnessed it .

Summer in UTG

On warm days in the Gardens, I see groups of youths playing football, students gathered on the grass socialising or studying, parents with their children running about safely and far from the road, older people sitting on the benches enjoying the sun and people like myself taking an hour out of their busy day to eat their lunch..





The Victorian toilets were closed in 2000. Since then, the Gardens have been allowed to become rundown. What they need is sympathetic restoration not annihilation. Many towns and cities would love to have what we have in our city - a beautiful sunken garden, right in the heart of it. It is Common Good land. This is Aberdeen's heritage and some people want to throw it away, cover it over!

Street level design will hide the Belmont Street buildings

The City Garden Project people seem determined to make us believe that the fate of our city hinges on a park!
   
I JUST DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!




                                     10 reasons to vote Retain Union Terrace Gardens 
                                                               

I wrote this poem about 2 years ago and I haven't changed my mind in the slightest. Union Terrace Gardens are the centrepiece of  the beautiful city that I'm proud to live in and blend in wonderfully with the surrounding buildings as they were supposed to. To replace them with concrete walkways more suited to a motorway and to kill healthy 200 year old elm trees in order to do this is quite simply outrageous - a crime against nature.
Restoration is what's needed - they've been neglected for far too long. With a few additions such as a cafe, play park for children, better access and toilets (already there but have been closed for about a decade) the Gardens can be a place to be proud of once again and it won't cost millions.

I ♥ Union Terrace Gardens

We're told that it's a vision
a sight we need to see
But clearly what THEY'RE seeing
is not the same as me

I see a place of beauty
lost for ever more
Filled by vile concrete
a car park at its core?

I see the mighty elm trees
home to nesting crows
Chopped down, murdered, discarded
to solve the city's woes?

I see the lovely flower beds
designed with different blooms
Destroyed so they can raise them up
amongst the noise and fumes?

I see the happy trainey park
to generations past
How many more will use them
are we to be the last?

Restore to former glory
it's  plain enough to me
that this is what the people want
and what THEY need to see