Dundee’s bustling city centre streets may seem safe enough to the casual pedestrian, but a potential killer is lurking above all our heads.
Look up towards the rooftops of buildings, particularly in the Seagate/St Andrews Street area, and you will see some fine, ornate stonework, possibly even gargoyles or carved stone figurines protruding above the thick, stone walls.
But it’s also likely your eyes will stray towards the branches, bushes and general shrubbery growing among the old stonework, guttering and chimney pots.
Not only does it look unsightly and suggests a lack of maintenance of the roof areas, there is a more sinister effect going on as the roots of the weeds are actually causing damage to the structures they adorn, weakening the stonework and mortar by the day.
And we all know what can happen when loose stonework breaks off from the roof of a three-storey tenement block and crashes to the ground below.
Falling masonry can cause serious injury, as witnessed by the effects of a storm in London earlier this year, when a woman was killed after tonnes of masonry crashed down on top of her car in Holborn.
Last month traffic in Constitution Street was brought to a standstill after loose masonry fell 100ft to the pavement from the top of the former Post Office building in Constitution Street near the junction with Ward Road.
The street remained closed for almost an hour while firefighters worked to secure the remaining structure on the roof of the five-storey building, which also formerly housed Yuppies Bar and London Nightclub.
No-one was injured despite it falling around teatime on a Saturday however, many believe it is only a matter of time before trees and shrubbery growing on Dundee’s crumbling rooftops will cause a catastrophic accident.
Now the city council’s environment convener, Councillor Craig Melville, whose Maryfield ward covers Stobswell and the city centre, wants landlords to take action to prevent such a catastrophe.
Mr Melville said: “The council does have a derelict land working group which also covers buildings, and I have specifically asked to place an item on the agenda for the next meeting as I believe this is something that the group could look at.
“Obviously if any kind of masonry is falling it is a very serious issue which could cause severe injury or in the worst possible scenario even death. There are several buildings in the Stobswell and city centre areas which have come to my attention in particular the old King’s Theatre, where there is a large amount of shrubbery growing among the rooftops.
“Apart from the obvious visual impairment, it is a serious health and safety issue and I will be going to the next meeting on Wednesday to speak about that.
“We need property owners to take responsibility. If they don’t then as a council we have ways of dealing with that.
“We also have a certain degree of responsibility as a council and we do have further powers down the line if it becomes a health and safety issue.”
Dundee businessman Jimmy Marr, who owns the building and runs the popular Deja Vu nightclub on the ground floor, says they have already contracted a firm to clean up the offending shrubbery and the work should be completed before the end of the month.
“We do it every year,” he says. “Obviously it grows back very quickly, the pigeons drop seeds and before you know it there’s a small tree growing there.
“We’ve got a firm in place and they’re coming with a cherrypicker to get rid of all the bushes. The building is about to be repainted as well, once that’s done.
“We do check the building every year.”