A 25-hour bakery, wild flower seeds for all residents to scatter and even a Formula One race these are just some of the things Dundonians want to see in their city by 2017.
The We Dundee website was set up to support the city’s bid to be shortlisted for the City of Culture award by collecting people’s thoughts on what surprises them about Dundee.
Then last month, after Dundee reached the final shortlist of four bidding cities, the site relaunched with organisers asking people to submit their hopes for what they wanted to see in 2017, the year of City of Culture.
Now more than 900 submission will be factored in when the city’s bid document is put together for the prestigious award.
Lyall Bruce, one of the team behind the site, said: “It’s been great. We know that the first round of it was easy for people to get involved with because they were supporting it.
“We knew this was going to be more difficult because it asked people to think of what they wanted and then write it down.
“We’ve had to put the deadline on (submissions) today.
“Leisure and Culture Dundee will be putting the final document together and they are wanting to draw a line under it and put them into the document.”
The ideas and wishes have been as diverse as the first round entries to the site, but organisers have divided them into categories dealing with river, light, environment, people and other.
Many common themes emerged including highlighting Dundee’s great maritime history.
One wish read: “In 2017 I would like to see a dedicated maritime museum with the Discovery, the Unicorn and the Carr Lighthouse together with whaling/jute/shipbuilding history of Dundee incorporated into it.”
Another hoped for “the siting of a decommissioned Royal Navy ship at the Waterfront as a tourist attraction”.
More wishes concentrated on the city’s comics heritage with plans for a statue of Oor Wullie and a DC Thomson tourist trail of cartoon characters with statues and installations being put forward.
Among the more outlandish wishes were two hoping for a Formula One road race around the streets of Dundee.
One read: “In 2017 I would like to see an F1 grand prix, starting in the city centre, running up Victoria Road and Dens Road, along Strathmore Avenue, down Loons Road, then along Ancrum Road and down Ninewells Avenue, then on to Riverside Drive via Botanic Gardens and back to city centre.
“Go on, make it happen! Scotland has never staged an F1 grand prix and that route, even as a ‘one-off’, would be arguably the best street circuit ever raced!”
Another website user put forward the idea of an eco-cycle cinema with bikes powering an outdoor cinema, while another wanted to see everyone in the city riding bicycles in 2017.
They wrote: “It is such a cheap and healthy way to move around a city. It could help tackle a number of social and health problems. So getting more people cycling in Dundee by 2017 should be a big aim for the city.”
Lyall and the team have been keeping tabs on the competition from the other shortlisted cities Hull, Leicester and Swansea Bay but they remain confident that Dundee has the edge.
“It’s going to be a close thing but of course I’m still confident about our bid,” Lyall said.