|
Playing Ball
Private Business: Public Planning
Monika Vykoukal
The abilities of elite capitalists to shape public policy
and government decisions through the power of their philanthropic as well as
business activities is not limited to the connections of wealth, power, and government
on the level outlined in Michael Barker’s considered analysis of the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation. In fact, a cursory look at some recent goings-on
in Scotland suggests that the relationship of public benefit to private funds
is of a similar nature, if on a smaller scale. In the area of public planning
in Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen there are two developments which have come to varying
wider prominence, Donald Trump’s golf-course and housing scheme in Aberdeenshire1,
and Sir Ian Wood’s more recent plans for the city centre of Aberdeen.
“The greatest golf course anywhere in the world”2 proposed by Donald
Trump for Aberdeenshire’s Menie Estate was a not entirely welcome pitch
for locals in 2006. Trump’s plan attracted dismay for its location on a
Site of Special Scientific Interest, as well as its inconsistency with the existing
overall planning for the area.3 Emphasised by Trump and also gaining local support – including
on the level of residents – was the argument of economic benefit to the
region in the context of a lack of planning for the coming decline in the energy
sector, the main economic focus of the area, on the part of local and indeed
national government. Against this background, Trump’s outline planning application
went through the established decision-making channels, to be rejected by the
Infrastructure Services Committee of Aberdeenshire Council with a narrow vote
in November 2007.4 The committee chair, Martin Ford, cast the deciding vote,
and has since been seen as the key personality in this rejection.
While Trump chose not to undertake the established route of appealing the planning
decision, the decision over the development was called in by national government
in an unprecedented manner5 after a series of meetings between government officials,
including the First Minister, Alex Samond, and representatives of the Trump organisation.
Following a subsequent inquiry by the Local Government and Communities Committee
in early 2008 into the handling of the planning application, as well as a public
enquiry on the planning application itself, the development eventually received
outline planning permission by the Scottish Government, where the decision rested
with Scottish Ministers, in November 2008.6 In the scrutiny of the call-in, Salmond’s
involvement was legitimised by the point that he did not intervene using his
position as First Minister, but in his role as MSP for the constituency concerned7,
and that an application rejected at the local level can be called in by Scottish
Ministers if they consider it of national importance and if this is done prior
to the planning decision notice being issued by the local council.8
Nonetheless, the widely communicated dismay and the subsequent removal of Ford
from the Infrastructure Services Committee, and the gradual suspension of other
councillors who opposed the development9, left the overwhelming impression that
it was Trump’s wealth and the threat of taking his business elsewhere10
that had allowed him to directly shape local planning by his investment, which
influenced public decisions at the highest level. A key role of government would
arguably be that of regulating private and economic interests in relation to
other values. However, the contested claim that Trump’s project will significantly
further the local economy11 in this case clearly overruled previous planning
policy and in particular concerns such as environmental sustainability. Issues
surrounding the political fall-out locally, in terms of the position of the opposed
councillors, and the continued concerns of opponents to the scheme, in particular
from an ecological perspective, continue as the development is set to take its
course.12 In a further twist of events, Aberdeenshire Council are now ‘not
ruling out’ compulsory purchase orders to acquire land for Trump’s
scheme with public funds.13
Emerging just before the favourable decision in the Trump case, Sir Ian Wood
intervention in Aberdeen City’s public planning was in many ways analogous
to Trump’s more widely reported efforts. In this case, Wood – a local
businessman who as founder of the Wood Group is now one of the richest individuals
in Scotland14, and has created his own charitable foundation, The Wood Family
Trust15 offered the city £50 million towards the development of a square
in the current location of a city centre park, a scheme he has championed in
previous incarnations for decades.16 Thus, an earlier version of the scheme formed
part of ‘Aberdeen Beyond 2000’, a report in 1987 by “a self-appointed
committee of local interests, including Wood, dominated by the business sector”17,
including oil corporations, construction, local businesses, financial institutions,
local government representation, as well as the University of Aberdeen and local
media. As pointed out in a critical review of this report in 1988, the ‘Aberdeen
Beyond 2000’ group and its plans “[ran] contrary to... [the] democratically
accountable planning system”18, and the report “undermines the position
of the local authorities involved”, constituting effectively “an attempt
by unelected and unaccountable interests to appropriate those [democratic planning]
functions.”19
In a return to ‘Beyond 2000 of 1987’, the current scheme was first
publicly proposed in the form of a press conference Wood gave in Aberdeen in
November 2008 in the company of Alex Salmond, in his function of First Minister
on this occasion. While the details of the scheme are still unknown, Wood’s
offer has, for the time being, halted a previously granted planning application
for the same site for a new contemporary art centre proposed by Peacock Visual
Arts.20
Since Wood’s donation would have to be more than matched by public funds – anything
approaching actual cost is at this point conjecture, although the figure most
recently reported is £140 million21 – his generosity is, in effect,
influencing not only public planning but also expenditure. Thus, local citizens
will have contributed to an as yet not clearly communicated scheme they have,
so far, have had little if any opportunity to influence and which does not appear
in any way a response to politically identified priorities, be they in terms
of public provision at large or more specifically in public planning.22 Wood’s
ambitions are, if his plan is implemented, set to reconfigure a central, if currently
little used, public space through an initiative stemming not from any tangible
public interest but from his private wealth. In this context it is notable that
the development of his scheme towards planning permission and its ultimate realisation
is steered by local private-public body Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Forum
(ASCEF)23 and has most recently been propped up by Scottish Enterprise, who,
in another twist and turn of events, also support the art centre scheme.24
Beyond the steering of public planning by private business in North-East Scotland,
a more structural analysis of corporate influence on the Scottish government
is carried out by David Miller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow, and one of the founding editors of spinwatch.org. Amongst the cases
cited in his diagnosis of a “general orientation towards business interests”25
and “the progressive neutering of processes of democracy”26 is the
role of Sir Ian Byatt who runs the Water Industry Commission for Scotland (WICS) – who’s
ostensible role is to make sure Scottish Water is run efficiently within the
public sector – which employs the consultancy Frontier Economics, and Byatt,
while in his role at WICS, is in turn employed by Frontier Economics as a senior
associate pushing for the privatisation of Scottish Water.27 Furthermore, both
The Scottish Parliament’s ‘Business Exchange’ (SPBE) and the Scottish
Government’s Management group and Financial Services Advisory Board are,
as outlined by Miller, populated by lobbyists, business representatives and executives
from finance capitalism, respectively.28
The developments around Trump and the emerging Wood saga are thus clearly not
isolated events of a somewhat amusing reverence before the powerful and generous.
Rather, they highlight the often much less blatantly visible integration of Corporate
and Public Sectors: from the framing of personal philanthropy as an acceptable
substitute for public welfare provision29 to the rather more prominent and spectacular
public financing of private losses currently taking place on the world-wide scale
of the global financial system.
Notes
1. “The proposed development included two 18 hole
links golf courses: a golf clubhouse; a golf academy; golf maintenance building
and caddy shack; a short game area and driving range; a 450 unit resort hotel,
conference centre and spa; 36 golf villas; 950 holiday homes; staff accommodation;
parking areas; access roads and two future private residential housing areas
for 500 houses in total”, Local Government and Communities Committee; 5th
Report, 2008 (Session 3); Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate); Volume
1, pg. 1, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm
2. TIGLS Donald Trump Precognition, pg. 2, Precognition Statements, Aberdeenshire
Council, Menie Estate Public Enquiry, http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/inquiry/index.asp#statements
3. Local Government and Communities Committee; 5th Report, 2008 (Session 3);
Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate); Volume 1, pg. 1, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm
4. The tie was moreover not between granting permission or refusing it, but over
refusing or deferring the decision; see Local Government and Communities Committee;
5th Report, 2008 (Session 3); Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate);
Volume 1, pg. 14, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm
5. Local Government and Communities Committee; 5th Report, 2008 (Session 3);
Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate); Volume 1, pg. 35, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm
6. See Menie Estate Public Enquiry, Aberdeenshire Council, Decision letter dated
3 November 2008 to the applicants‘ agent, http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/planning/inquiry/index.asp
7. See e.g. The Scottish Government News Release, Proposed golf resort in Aberdeenshire,
20/12/2007, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2007/12/20091903
8. Local Government and Communities Committee; 5th Report, 2008 (Session 3);
Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate); Volume 1, pg. 7-8, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm
9 . Ford and three other Liberal Democrat councillors have since left the Party,
after they were suspended or investigated in relation to their opposition to
the Trump development, to form an independent group. Most recently Ford has joined
the Green Party, while the Trump organisation has reported his colleague Debra
Storr to the Standards Commission for alleged trespassing on the Menie Estate.
See Gillian Bell and Jamie Buchan, ‘Lib Dem party suspends trio who quit
council group’, Aberdeen Press & Journal, 2/3/09; http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1101662?UserKey=; Shona Gossip, ‘Trump reports Storr to watchdog’, 16/4/09, http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1173221; Jamie Buchan, ‘Disgusted councillor quits party’, Aberdeen Press & Journal,
22/5/09, http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1228375; ‘Trump politician
to join Greens’, BBC News, 31/5/09, http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8075787.stm
10. See e.g. Local Government and Communities Committee; 5th Report, 2008 (Session
3); Planning Application Processes (Menie Estate); Volume 1, pg. 15 and 26, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S3/committees/lgc/reports-08/lgr08-05.htm.
Trump had also stated in an interview (prior to the negative decision in November
2007), that “because I am who I am... I’m going to get it.” Alex
Shoumatoff, ‘The Thistle and the Bee’, Vanity Fair, May 2008,
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/05/trump200805
11. See e.g. ‘Trump’s Scottish venture. Birdie or bogey?’, The
Economist, 6/11/08; http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12564699
12. See e.g. Gillian Bell, ‘Tycoon to fund Trump golf resort protest’, Aberdeen
Press & Journal, 13/5/ 2009, http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1214366?UserKey=
13. Calum Ross, ‘Public cash may be used to buy land for Trump compulsory
purchases not ruled out by council’, Aberdeen Press & Journal,
9/5/09, http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1208996
14. Hamish MacDonell, ‘Downturn makes for not-quite-so-rich list’, The
Scotsman, 27/4/09, http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Downturn-makes-for-notquitesorich-list.5207228.jp
15 See http://www.woodfamilytrust.org ; Sir Ian Wood was chairman of Scottish
Enterprise from 1997 to 2000 and is currently chancellor of The Robert Gordon
University, Aberdeen.
16. See Mike Wade, ‘£13m Aberdeen arts plan loses cash to rival scheme’, Times
Online, 24/4/09, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6164665.ece;
and M.G. Lloyd and D.A. Newlands, ‘The “Growth Coalition” and
Urban Economic Development’, Local Economy, 3:1, pg. 31-39, 1988
17. M.G. Lloyd and D.A. Newlands, ‘The “Growth Coalition” and
Urban Economic Development’, Local Economy, 3:1, pg. 31-39, 1988, pg. 35;
this version was not the first, but resurrected “a previous proposal to
redevelop part of the city centre, decisively rejected by the District Council”,
ibid, pg. 27.
18. Ibid, pg. 37
19. Ibid, pg. 38
20. For the record, I worked as curator at Peacock Visual Arts from 2004-2009.
For more information on this scheme see, e.g. http://www.peacockvisualarts.com/new-building/; on the implications of the Ian Wood scheme on the previous plans, see, e.g.
Council Additional Agenda 17 December 2008, Union Terrace Gardens and Peacock
Visual Arts - Report by Corporate Director for Strategic Leadership, Aberdeen
City Council, www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/nmsruntime/saveasdialog.asp?lID=19935&sID=8635[pdf download]
21. Ruth Bloomfield, ‘Aberdeen row over rival plans,’ 15/5/09, Building
Design Online, http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=3140541
22. See Aberdeen Local Plan (2008), Chapter 3, pg. 59, http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Planning/sl_pla/pla_LocalPlan_home.asp; Union Street, Conservation Area Appraisal, Strategic Leadership Planning & Infrastructure,
Aberdeen City Council June 2007, pg. 27, 29, 32-33, http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/Conservation/sl_cns/pla_conservation_areas.asp
23. See ‘ACSEF leads on vision for new city centre heart’, http://www.acsef.co.uk/ezineItem.cfm?theID=1&itemID=5The ASCEF board’s majority is constituted by private sector bodies, including
North-East construction magnate Stewart Milne.It would seem ACSEF (Aberdeen City
and Shire Economic Forum) has recently renamed itself the Aberdeen City and Shire
Economic FUTURE.
24. Mike Wade, ‘£13m Aberdeen arts plan loses cash to rival scheme’, Times
Online, 24/4/09, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article6164665.ece
25. David Miller, ‘Corporate Power and the SNP Government’, 2/4/08,
http://www.spinwatch.org.uk/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/70-british-politics/4778-corporate-power-and-the-snp-government
26. David Miller, ‘Spin, corporate power and the social sciences’,
Autumn-Winter 2008/2009, pg. 1, http://www.dmiller.info/popular-journals
27. David Miler, ‘Corporate Power and the SNP Government’, 2/4/08,
http://www.spinwatch.org.uk/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/70-british-politics/4778-corporate-power-and-the-snp-government; see also, ‘Water quango gave £275,000 to chairman’s organisations’, The
SundayHerald, 14/2/09, http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2489312.0.water_quango_gave_275_000_to_chairmans_organisations.php
28. David Miller, ‘Spin, corporate power and the social sciences’,
Autumn-Winter 2008/2009, pg. 2-3, http://www.dmiller.info/popular-journals
29. See‚ ‘An evaluation of Corporate Community Investment in the UK,
A research report by the International Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility,’ Nottingham
University Business School for CAF (Charities Aid Foundation), December 2006,
pg. 8, www.cafonline.org/pdf/CCI%20research%20report.pdf : “With the growth
of the welfare state, much of this social provision was carried out by Government
agencies and industrial paternalism declined leaving business philanthropy as
the dominant mode of CCI. This continued until the 1980s, since when successive
governments have increasingly leveraged the support of charities and businesses
to address social, environmental and economic problems. These multi-partner initiatives
are characteristic of a more networked model of governance.”
|