Members of the public are to be discouraged from venturing on to a “dangerous” beach when a tract of unused land on Dundee’s western fringes is opened to the public as a nature park.
The city’s assistant engineer Graham Storrie said the public should keep away from the beach, which is a haven for bird life, after the new Riverside Nature Park’s expected opening in March 2011.
He said visitors would be encouraged to take in views over Invergowrie Bay, with its mud flats and fast tides, from a safe distance to try to prevent them getting into danger by venturing to the water’s edge.
Mr Storrie was speaking at a meeting of Dundee’s West End Community Council at the Logie and St John’s (Cross) Parish Church Halls on Tuesday night.
He was joined in a presentation on the scheme by city planning officer Catherine Houston and Dundee contract services’ procurement and performance manager Mark Ross.
The 33-hectare Riverside site by Dundee Airport encompasses a former rubbish tip and was allocated £1 million from the Scottish Government’s Vacant and Derelict Land Fund in 2008 to help open it up to local residents, dog walkers, cyclists, bird watchers and nature lovers.
Now, the area has been remodelled, while the old network of paths will be recreated, with new ones added, and there will be new bird hides, fencing, planting and information boards.
But one of those attending described the adjacent beach as “dangerous for children” and called for it to be fenced off.
“Because of the beach we would try and keep people away from that area,” said Mr Storrie.
The council officials said they were confident about and committed to opening the park by the end of March.
“Since work began on the site, progress there has been tremendous, with only minor delays due to the weather,” Ms Houston said.
There had been fears that underground gas pockets would delay the scheme after a team from Abertay University discovered them in the 1990s and the area was then closed to the public in 2000 following an edict by SEPA.
A number of members of the public had concerns that the quango’s demands would again interfere with the process, but Mr Storrie said he and other council representatives were reaping the benefits of a good working relationship with SEPA.
An Invergowrie resident raised concerns about the smell from the city council’s Riverside composting centre which will sit alongside the park, but Mr Storrie explained the “stringent” rules on council recycling.
“I can appreciate that it’s a most unpleasant smell,” he said,
“But there are high pressures on local authorities to reduce the amount of waste they produce both at source and how much they recycle,” he said.
The council is still actively seeking additional funding for the site to provide a car park, toilet facilities and more information boards, the replanting of hedgerows and wild flowers, and to integrate the site with the city’s cycle network.
Photo by Stewart Lloyd-Jones.