Aberdeen City Council to defend controversial bus gates in court

Aberdeen City Council will appear in court on Tuesday to defend the city’s controversial bus gates.

Retailer Norman Esslemont is representing a group of Aberdeen businesses who claim the measures were not lawfully made permanent.

The local authority has issued more than 100,000 fines linked to the bus priority measures in the past two years.

Some drivers say they now avoid Aberdeen altogether, fearing they’ll be fined

But the council has consistently defended the project, saying the restrictions are clearly signposted, support active travel, and improve bus reliability.

Mr Esslemont told STV News: “In my 60 years in business I have never seen a council so out of touch with the business and public in Aberdeen.”

After failed attempts to reach a compromise, Mr Esslemont launched legal action against the council. Around £70,000 was raised to fund the case.

He added: “It’s just very sad. It’s very sad. Everybody has tried negotiations, and to get them to listen. But they don’t because for some reason they seem to know better…the time scale it really affected us was from April last year.

“In July, we faced a massive drop of 30-40% in turnover, and that was because so many had been fined, they started to say we’re not coming in to Aberdeen.”

The biggest changes were introduced on Guild Street, Bridge Street and Market Street, where more than 100,000 fines have been handed out since the scheme began.

Of the fines paid, Aberdeen City Council has raised more than £3.5m.

Alison, a private tour guide from Inverness, said she stopped visiting Aberdeen after receiving £400 worth of fines earlier this year.

She said: “I’ve spoken to a few tour guides, some from Aberdeen as well, and they say they avoid Aberdeen for this reason. The city is not going to get visitors to the centre, I’m not taking anyone back there, not as long as this is going on.”

The bus gates were first introduced as experimental measures before being made permanent just over a year ago.

Mr Esslemont argues the scheme was “never truly experimental in nature” and that the council “provided inadequate and unintelligible reasons to make them permanent”.

Aberdeen City Council said it will not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.

The case will be heard at the Court of Session in Edinburgh and is expected to last two days.