I’m sick of Sir Ian Wood’s claim that young people who want to see the City Garden Project go ahead have vision; and that those of us who are supporting the retain campaign fear change. In the BBC Radio Scotland Debate, the oil tycoon described 27 year-old Aberdeen City Council leader Callum McCaig as being a “young man with vision.” Ten years younger than our beloved SNP adolescent, I consider myself to have vision – the vision to recognise that the City Garden Project is not the solution to Aberdeen’s problems.

I am in no denial that Aberdeen’s city centre is in need of some serious improvement. In fact, I think that Union Street is – in some parts – a real embarrassment to us Aberdonians. A friend’s mother told me how she gets a taxi back from working up in Inverness most evenings. Because of Union Street’s state, she has now avoids Union Street on her drive home, as she feels so let down by the empty shops, miserable faces behind filthy glass bus stops and dirty 1960s concrete structures that pollute what was once the street we talked of with pride.

But the City Garden Project is not the solution to our failed high street. Claims that the City Garden Project will provide the new heart and breathe a new lease of life in to the Granite City are untrue. It’s case of replacing a park with a park; and adding even more buildings and construction that – come a decade’s time – will look so ugly that it needs done up or should be knocked down. And this has happened before in our city. The Bon Accord and St Nicholas Centre were opened in 1990 as what was once a fantastic modern building. In 2011, £2million of work was undertaken to “bring it in to the twenty-first century.” Walking in to the Trinity Centre, it feels like stepping back a generation. And now there’s Union Square – as if we didn’t have enough retail space already. Although it feels modern and fresh, it will soon be outdated. And where will the money be to do up The Granite Web when it needs done up?

But what Union Square is a prime example of is exposing how retail-dependant our society has become. People are not spending time sitting on benches in Union Street or outside Marischal College. They’re hurrying to and fro the Apple Store and Hollister. This isn’t a problem in itself, but proof that Aberdeen will flock to wherever there is a new set of fashion outlets and chain restaurants. Don’t have me wrong, I am found in Nando’s most Saturday evenings along with many people my age, but if Union Street – which was once our main thoroughfare and shopping district – was cleaned and rates were lowered to allow shops to survive there, surely this would be better than raising Union Terrace Gardens?

The ‘Vote for the City Garden Project’ campaign has made numerous claims that there will be 6,500 jobs created by the development. I have no idea where these figures have come from and probably never will. I worked out that if going by a rough number of gardeners, security, staff for the venues and guards for the art gallery, there would be around 500 employees. Where are the other 6,000?

Despite recognising that the public will never see any detailed financial details until after the referendum and that Union Street will not be saved with this raised concrete construction, I still don’t understand where these jobs figures are coming from, and how the City Garden Project will save our city centre.

I have vision and ambition and see that there’s a lot wrong with out city. But vision does not mean suddenly falling in love with every new proposal and unjustified claims by a PR company.