Weekly Road Report – West End Ward #dundeewestend

DUNDEE CITY COUNCIL – WEEKLY ROAD REPORT


REPORT FOR WEEK WEST END WARD – COMMENCING MONDAY 11 OCTOBER 2021

Blackness Avenue – closed for 3 weeks for carriageway resurfacing.

Logie Street/Ancrum Road/Lochee Road/Loons Road – 4 way temporary traffic lights from 11 October for 4 days for City Fibre works.

Glamis Drive (Glamis Road to Hazel Drive) – road closure from Monday 11 October for 6 days for City Fibre works.

Eton Street (Blackness Road to Cambridge Street) – road closure from Monday 11 October for 6 days for City Fibre works.

Riverside Drive (at the Airport) – temporary traffic lights on Monday 11 October (off-peak) for loop cutting.

Forthcoming Roadworks

Hawkhill (Horsewater Wynd to Session Street) – eastbound nearside lane closure from Monday 18 October for one week for Scottish Water work.

Grosvenor Road (Shaftesbury Road to Perth Road) – closed from Monday 25 October for 2 days for carriageway resurfacing works.

Riverside Avenue (A90 Kingsway to Apollo Way) – closed overnight (7.30pm – 6.30am) on Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 October for SSEN Cable Diversion work.


Scotland’s Garden Scheme – next weekend! #dundeewestend

 

Next weekend again sees Frances and John Dent in Glamis Drive open their beautiful garden to residents, as part of Scotland’s Gardens Scheme.

Not only is a visit to the garden a pleasure – it also helps raise funds for charity.    This time, John and Frances are supporting Dr Graham’s Homes in Kalimpong, West Bengal.

The homes were founded more than 100 years ago as an orphanage for Anglo-Indian children.   Since then it has developed to be a successful boarding school for children from Nursery to Senior ages, with an additional hostel in Kolkata for school leavers progressing to higher education. 

The pupils now come from a range of socially deprived families rather than as orphans.   Approximately half of the boarding pupils are partially or fully sponsored by an international group of supporters especially from the UK.    As Dr Graham was a Moderator of the General Assembly in the 1940s, the Church of Scotland has a long-standing interest in the homes.

So, please visit next weekend – a lovely garden to see and a very worthwhile charity being supported.


Bus timetables at bus stops – or lack of them!

There’s been a large reaction from residents to the articles in the Courier and Evening Telegraph last week in which I highlighted that, although real time bus information is working at bus shelters, paper timetables have been out of date since the bus companies altered services at the start of the COVID-19 health emergency.


There has been an attempt to remove erroneous and out of date timetables but bus stops across Dundee still lack correct timetables – some 18 months since the pandemic started.

I think everyone accepts that during the 2020 lockdowns there was significant change and understandable volatility in bus services but some stability has returned – just not the timetables at bus stops! It is unhelpful for passengers who do not have access to apps on their mobile phone.

I have repeatedly raised this with the City Council over many months and the most recent feedback from the Team Leader, Parking & Sustainable Transport advised :

“The commercial bus network in Dundee has still not stabilised so we continue to push passengers towards apps, websites or Traveline (phone service) for the most accurate and up to date bus information. The real time displays in our bus shelters are updated with each change.”


I have made clear to the City Council that I think this line has run its course particularly as other authorities are restoring timetables, such as in Perth and Kinross.

There are repeated requests from constituents and bus passengers about this. The lack of timetables at bus stops impacts on older passengers in particular where a higher proportion of people do not use or have access to mobile apps.

I have said to the council’s transportation team that I do think we really do now need a timeframe for restoration of timetables after consultation with the bus operators. We should be making it as easy as possible for people to use public transport and Dundee City Council’s current position on this simply is not helping.


Harris Education & Recreation Association – Autumn classes #dundeewestend

The HERA autumn term enrolment night is on line from next Wednesday (13th October) at www.heradundee.org.

There’s a great range of evening classes to sign up for!

The next block of courses will start on the week commencing 25th October.

Details of courses are available on the HERA website mentioned above and also on its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/HERAdundee.


West End parking improvements – more delays concern

I have today heavily criticised Dundee City Council for yet further delays in bringing forward proposals for residents’ priority parking in the West End – a year and a half after the council undertook consultation meetings with local residents over the issue.


I have been continually asking the City Development Department to bring the outcomes of the consultation with the public to committee together with recommendations to improve parking for residents. 

There is clearly good support for a residents’ priority parking permit scheme as long as it is reasonable and affordable as it would make it much easier for local residents to get parked. However, the council is taking an absolute age to bring proposals forward and there is a total lack of momentum on the part of Dundee City Council to get this issue resolved.

Well-attended consultation meetings took place in March 2020 just before the onset of the COVID-19 health emergency but there has been absolutely no progress by Dundee City Council since. In October 2020, the council said it hoped for progress in the first half of 2021. 

It later said a report to committee would come forward by the end of 2021 and now it is kicking the ball even further down the road. This is apparently because separate consultations in two other wards are not complete but I see absolutely no good reason to further delay progress in the West End where the consultation meetings are long completed, a year and a half ago.

The council’s Head of Sustainable Transport and Roads has this week advised me :

“We previously advised of a December reporting target earlier in the year when the Covid transmission rate was supressed, and we were scheduled to recommence consultations in person. Following the re-emergence of high transmission rates these consultations were suspended which has resulted in a delay to the reporting programme.

Once we have identified with communities a preferred route for remote engagement, and scheduled the remaining consultations, we will update stakeholders with a revised timescale for reporting on the consultation.”

For some reason best known to itself, the council is further delaying progress on this important issue in the West End because it has still to do consultation in some in other parts of Dundee that have unrelated parking issues.        I fully agree that the other areas should have their consultation meetings and their issues properly tackled, but delaying the West End proposals further because of consultation meetings in other areas that are unrelated to the issues in the West End makes absolutely no sense.

The council is losing public confidence in the West End over its snail’s pace approach to the parking problem and I am calling on the council to finally put some momentum behind this and bring forward proposals to help local residents and give concrete assurances as to timescales.