Dundee City Council voting to close Caird Park golf course is crystal clear evidence of a council totally out of touch with the people they’re meant to represent.
Every day those in charge become more culpable in the civic destruction of the city, knowing the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
Our proud history and tradition, and sense of community, mean nothing to them.
Broughty Castle too, an ancient landmark steeped in history and folklore has been given a temporary reprieve.
Perhaps on the basis that a more vociferous and articulate lobby in the Ferry presents a much more dangerous opponent than the average council course golfer.
Martin Goodfellow, of the Broughty Ferry Traders, said closing the castle represented a “staggering lack of vision” and that more needed to be done utilise the attraction.
Caird Park Golf Club captain Ian Gordon said: “Dundee is the fourth largest city in Scotland and it could be left without a municipal golf course – that is disgraceful”
Will Caird Park become an eyesore?
‘Cairdy’ as its known is a city institution.
A generation of Dundonians from hackers like me to potential champions have learned to play our second national sport on its fine fairways and lush greens.
What now will happen to that huge area of greenery?
Will it become the eyesore that Camperdown Park, where the council also axed the golf course, has become?
Is the city destined to have yet another sprawling wasteland with knee-high weeds and grass filling the space where a verdant and rich golf course allowed generations to keep fit and take fresh air and exercise?
Will it be abandoned to the dirt bike scramblers and car thieves, who already wreak havoc across the park, so that they can continue to cause chaos and mayhem?
The lack of vision on these decisions is astounding from a city council which seems to take two steps back for every one it takes forward.
Just when the city seems to be growing in confidence and self-belief, with ambitious plans for a new live music venue in the old Green’s Playhouse and the regeneration of the Overgate, it immediately regresses into the visionless and parochial mentality which this grim bureaucratic decision represents.
On the one hand, a fortune is spent on cycling lanes and a new bike route from the Ferry to the city centre to help Dundonians keep fit, while a superb golf course which helps folk live a healthy and fit lifestyle is condemned for closure.
‘Disaster’
It’s the sort of thinking which makes me wonder what the actual role of the city council is since money and savings appear to be the only drivers behind their thinking.
If we’re going down that road, maybe we should just privatise all council services and put them in the hands of folk who know how to run businesses and services.
But if we did that, it would spell disaster for the big earnings and job security of fat-cat councillors and officers who appear to be answerable to no one, and immune to any criticism.
Sadly, it would also be grim news for the many valued everyday council workers.
They must be shaking their heads at the folk in charge of them, people who would be out of their depth in the shallow end of the Olympia paddling pool, on the increasingly rare occasions they actually manage to keep it open.
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