Restoration Of City's Historic Heart About To Begin

A five-year conservation-led programme aimed at restoring Aberdeen's Green to its former glory gets underway this summer.

The Green Townscape Heritage Initiative (THI) has been set up to tackle the problems of rundown historic buildings and streetscape where longstanding economic and structural decline have undermined the character of the architecturally rich area.

Aberdeen City Council is working to make property owners aware of the benefits of the scheme, which will contribute to the cost of repairing and restoring the buildings to their former glory.

The project to regenerate the historic heart of Aberdeen has secured £1.4m of funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund.


The money, combined with another £1.4m contributed by Aberdeen City Council (£525,000), Historic Scotland (£350,000), and Scottish Enterprise (£525,000), will fund The Green Townscape Heritage Initiative, which aims to deliver a co-ordinated approach to the regeneration of this area with public and private sector partnerships.

Councillor John Stewart, chairman of the Green THI Board said: "This is a welcome opportunity to secure investment in key buildings in the area, as well as provide support for homeowners and businesses to improve their properties.

"This will be further enhanced by the streetscape improvements to the area, which are being funded by the City Council, which will assist in developing better linkages between Union Street and the new Guild Street development.

"The first visible evidence of the Green THI will be seen this summer with the launch of the streetscape work. I am excited at the prospect of seeing the work begin and the steady improvement of the area over the next four years."

Specific funding is available in the budget for the four priority projects.

The grant schemes are available to nearly all property owners in the area who wish to undertake high quality repair and restoration of buildings with architectural or group merit.

(GK/JM)