West End councillor Fraser Macpherson has accused Dundee City Council of “sitting on its hands” as residents’ parking woes intensify.
Mr Macpherson says his email inbox is overflowing with complaints from West End businesses and homeowners about a lack of accessible parking spaces.
According to Mr Macpherson, a recent council-led consultation on the future of the Perth Road saw homeowners and business owners name parking as the number one issue in the area.
He will present a motion at Dundee City Council’s city development committee on January 23 in a bid to convince his colleagues to revisit the issue.
The West End councillor explained: “The impression I get is that the administration has kicked this into the long grass.
“In five years since the last consultation on the subject, the council has done absolutely nothing.
“There were a number of issues raised during the meeting in the Tartan Coffee House (the recent consultation on developing the Perth Road).
“But the biggest single issue raised that day was parking. My email box and post box are both full of complaints from residents over parking. It’s vital that it gets tackled.”
Mr Macpherson believes West End residents and businesses must be given priority for spaces.
Fair pricing, too, must be applied to any future parking permits which may come as a result from such a priority parking scheme.
Mr Macpherson said: “The council came up with a take it or leave it scheme which was 16 times more expensive than the same scheme just over two miles away.
“There has to be equity in the costs involved in priority parking. The bottom line, for me, is that we absolutely need to tackle this issue and improve parking for businesses and local people.”
Dundee City Council city development convener Will Dawson said it would be “unacceptable and discriminatory” to focus purely on the West End as Mr Macpherson suggests.
He added: “If we look at fresh consultation on “a mix of different solutions”, then not only is he calling on the council to spend anywhere up to £200,000 to design those bespoke solutions and carry out the consultation, but officers would have to be pulled away from the work that they are currently doing in areas such as Stobswell and City Quay.
“This is work to help alleviate the issues that are flagged by residents and ward councillors in those areas and this could mean that our focus would be moved away from these areas by anywhere up to a year, potentially more.
“He has to remember that parking is an issue that affects the whole of the city from the West End to Whitfield and many of the problems we face as a city are down to our historic street layouts the were never designed for the car.”
Mr Dawson added that parking is being reviewed on a “ward by ward” basis.