A Broughty Ferry resident has called on Dundee City Council to force garage owners to bring their “unacceptable” property up to scratch.
The row of garages on Grove Road that lead to Leemount Lane form the boundary of John McMillan’s garden and he has been in touch with Mike Galloway, the council’s director of city development, regarding the issue since August.
Mr McMillan said the garages, which were built in the 1960s, are now in a “sorry state of repair” and are affecting the immediate neighbourhood.
He said: “Many are not wind or watertight and large areas of roughcast have fallen off many, some into my garden, and the wooden flashing have rotted in most.”
When Mr McMillan first contacted Mr Galloway, he was subsequently told that a recent site visit had confirmed the condition of the garages “does not require any action to be taken at this time.”
However, Mr McMillan then produced a council letter from 2004 that had been sent to one of the garage owners.
It read: “It has been brought to my attention that your property at the above address is in disrepair. The following item requires urgent attention:
“Spalling and missing roughcast requires to be repaired. Please ensure that the appropriate action to remedy this is instructed within 14 days from the date of this letter.”
In his most recent letter from the council, Mr McMillan was told that an enforcement officer and a building surveyor had re-examined the garages and had found that they gave no grounds for concern.
Mr McMillan said he found the council’s change of tack since 2004 “bewildering. How can something in 2004 be unacceptable standard and now it’s fine?”
A city council spokesman said: “We accept that the resident is unhappy with the condition of the garages and that he feels that there is a requirement upon the council to take action in this case because the owners were written to in 2004 stating that they needed to be repaired.
“However, following recent inspections of the site, we are of the view that the lock-up garages do not present a public safety issue and the limited areas of harling disrepair are not such as to adversely affect the amenity of the area.”