Peaceful Protest on Hadden Street

We urge Aberdeen City Council & Morrisons construction to urgently meet with businesses that will be displaced by the development of The New Aberdeen Market development to address concerns and make available detailed plans for the construction.

Our plan is to reach out to nearby businesses over the next few days to arrange a group meeting and have a united front on our needs.

This event is Plan B; failure to communicate or address concerns will lead to an open event “peaceful protest” on exchange street to demonstrate our community is at risk.

This event will remain peaceful, it is simply an exercise to show that our displacement will be of detriment to a community; as they have explicitly said otherwise.

For now; All we need is people to invite friends, and express interest in attending so we can ensure we have adequate volunteers to help and provide notice to any organisation.

[More information will be available soon]

“it cannot be argued that the loss of the business would be of detriment to the community”

- Aberdeen City Council, March 2024.

📃 What do we want from the council?

(Please note this will update after meeting other businesses!)

As mentioned back in March we raised concerns with the development plans for Aberdeen Market closing off the road. The road closure leaves only the narrow footpath from Market Street to The green for multiple years and will cause issues with access to our keg drop and various safety concerns.

- We ask Aberdeen City Council to have CCTV coverage and lighting installed around the site hoarding, this is due to the limited space it will be discouraging for visitors to walk from market street to our venue.

- We would like the City Council Bins located at out back fire exit re-located across the road with a loading bay at the back door for delivery’s to allow for an easier fire evacuation of the building due to spacing on Hadden street road being unavailable, this is a direct concern as in an emergency at capacity 300+ customers will try to use the closest exit and we would like to avoid crushing in the event of a panic.

- Our security company has asked to have an additional individual on at peak times as with the restricted space at our front door we require to use an additional door, this is a cost of £31,536 per year when profit margins are already squeezed.

- With deliveries being unable to go our usual route staff will need to lift stock from the back door, down to our beer cellar with lots of manual labour/hours estimated at £2379 per year. We also require to install a keg chute to facilitate heavy lifting.

- We ask that the graffiti on the hoarding is covered with signage on all the hoarding advertising the new development, and local businesses are open as usual so it doesn’t make the area look a mess, run down with graffiti.

- Previously we received complaints from neighbours about noise coming from our smoking area door, as this door will need to be unlocked when we are busy we ask that we have written letter to present at any meeting’s with regards to complaints. Cheerz Apartments may become unviable during the construction as visitors usually sleep between 3AM-3PM, this could cause an estimated loss of £12,000 in bookings.

- Due to lack of responses or accountability we ask that someone in the council is appointed as a liaison/responsible officer and this task is not left with the construction company.

- Clarification on road closure plans/drawings with previous information suggesting a period of 2-3 YEARS, will this closure be extended in 2025?

➡️ For reasons above we estimate due to the construction we will loose an additional £45,915 over the year and feel that the comments about not being viable for the hardship rates relief needs to be re-visited by the council. We also ask that a grant becomes available to support any costs to accommodate delivery’s or signage changes.