I recently highlighted residents' complaints across the West End about the extent of weeds on some streets - for example, Blackness Road and surrounding area - and I have received concerns about this issue from some other streets, such as Bankmill Road.In my earlier article I gave feedback from the City Engineer at Dundee City Council who explained that, traditionally, weeds spraying work by Dundee Contract Services (DCS) was undertaken 'east to west' across the city, rather than it taking place by doing the streets most badly affected first (as I had suggested).
As a follow-up, the City Engineer now reports reports that DCS has advised him :
“We started approx a week later than last year as many of the weeds had not appeared due to the severe winter we had.
As the weedkiller only works on contact with the leaves, starting earlier would have been wasteful. Blackness Road area was all sprayed week beginning 21/06/10.
No matter where we start, some areas are going to be bad before we get to them. Doing the worst streets first is not a good idea as it becomes confusing for the operators.”
The City Engineer himself further advises :
“…traditionally DCS start in the east and head west with their routes planned that way. I will ask (DCS) to advise on the possibility of starting in the west and heading east on an alternative year basis but in fairness we would need to do the same for each area ie north to south, south to north etc.”
I welcome the fact that the way weeds spraying across Dundee will be reviewed as clearly the current arrangement means some streets in the West End have badly overgrown weeds in them before weedkilling is undertaken.