‘My one-man mission to end decades-old mystery of who owns Old Aberdeen road – and get it fixed!’.

Stuart Patterson collaborated with his neighbours to repair the road, which allegedly had no owner. “Look at the difference!” Stuart Patterson smiles as he proudly shows me a freshly tarmacked piece of Cheyne Road that gleams in the sunlight.

Just a few months ago, it was “like a slalom course” with massive potholes placing homeowners’ automobiles at risk of serious damage. The ownership of Old Aberdeen Street was unclear, and there seemed to be little possibility for improvement.

That is, until Stuart embarked on a one-man crusade to finally solve the mystery – and become the hero the quiet hamlet required.

How long has Cheyne Road been a state?

Stuart and his wife moved into their Cheyne Road property in 2013, and they were already aware of the problems the pothole-ridden road was causing.

The 66-year-old stated, “At the last minute of purchasing the house, the lawyer contacted us and informed us that the road had not been adopted.”

“By that point we were quite far down the line of buying the house, and the road wasn’t in that bad of a state, so we thought we would just deal with that later…”

However, after six years of living in their Old Aberdeen home, Stuart saw that the road was in disrepair. At that point, the amateur archivist took action.

“It was getting to the point where it wasn’t good for your tyres or suspension, so I thought, ‘I’ll give it a shot, see if I can figure out who owns it,'” he said.

Who owned Cheyne Road?

Stuart then embarked on a years-long quest to discover who owned the road, as the local council had never fully adopted the length of the roadway.

His protracted journey led him through piles and stacks of title deeds, ordnance survey maps, and even mediaeval land registries.

After late nights trawling through these documents, and going into his own pocket to pay for access to papers, Stuart landed on who seemed to be the last owners of the road.

“Before the 19th century this was all farmland,” he explained.

“At that point I’m pretty sure the land was owned by the Incorporated Society of Bakers.”

It was then Stuart realised he may need an extra pair of hands to get to the bottom of the road riddle…

‘We wanted to see if people would put their money where their mouth is’

To get to the bottom of the mystery, the former community worker enlisted the help of local councillor Alex McLellan to get in touch with the guild.

However, the tale soon took another twist.

The bakers wrote back to the Old Aberdeen councillor saying they no longer owned the road, leaving Stuart back at square one.

“We kind of hit a dead end. We had hit several dead ends at that point,” he remembers.

“It was kind of lost to the mists of time, nobody really knows.”

After Mr McLellan wrote to those on the street asking if they would be up for repairing the road, he received plenty of support for the idea.

This led to a lightbulb moment for Stuart.

“We decided to pursue it, and see if people would actually put their money where their mouth was,” he said.

After knocking doors on Cheyne Road and rallying support, he managed to get 10 others to join his case, which set the wheels in motion for the much-awaited repairs.

‘If someone is going to do this – I need to step up’

The council’s roads team began work to restore the pothole-ridden stretch of Cheyne Road after neighbours pooled their funds, which totalled around £2,500 each. “When they actually came to do the work, it was all done in like two days,” Stuart tells me.

“It was as simple as that, and everybody is delighted that the road has been fixed.” And, for the 66-year-old, it exemplifies how locals can work together to improve their community. “Fortunately, many were able to climb above.

I expected more comments from those who were unwilling to pay, but no one was thinking that way. “I’m not a natural leader by any means, but I felt, if anyone would do this, I need to step up.

“I was the guy who went round and knocked on doors, but in terms of putting communications out and fielding questions, Alex was spot on.”

‘It was like a slalom course before – look at it now!’

With the renovation recently done, Stuart and his neighbours have already noticed a significant change.

“It’s made a tremendous difference, because if the road had been left, it would have just got worse and worse and worse…”

He continued, “It got to the point where you couldn’t drive down it. It was like a slalom race around potholes!

“There’s two people on the street who have a mobility scooter, and now they can actually get up the street without having to take a big detour around, so they’re happy.”

According to council officials, the road will survive between 20 and 40 years, which means Stuart’s road-repairing crusade will not need to be renewed until the following generation.

Mr McLellan described the road repairer’s campaign as a “fantastic example of a community coming together to address an issue”.He went on:

“Stuart has done a power of work to get residents on board with the privately funded resurfacing of Cheyne Road and for that he should be commended.”

Aberdeen City Council consulted with citizens about their options and completed the work to a high standard.

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