As residents know, I have been very critical of the City Council for for continual delays in bringing forward proposals for residents’ priority parking in the West End.
The council undertook consultation meetings with local residents over the issue at two very well attended meetings in Blackness Library in March 2020 - just before the onset of the COVID-19 health emergency - but has failed to progress scoping the scheme since then.
The council administration's excuse for this is that it had not started the consultation process in two other wards - Maryfield and Coldside - but as I have raised at the council's at the council's City Development Committee, the issues in the other two wards are different and there is absolutely no reason to hold up progress in one ward because of issues elsewhere. The parking solutions must be tailored to individual local circumstances and there is not a 'one solution fits all' template that can be rolled out for all three wards.
In short, there is no reason that the outcomes of the 2020 West End consultation with the public could come back to committee together with recommendations to improve parking for residents. At the committee's last meeting, I moved a successful motion to commit officers to have proposals back to committee no later than March 2022.
With this deadline in mind, the council is now finally getting round to online consultation meetings that will cover all three wards. There will two on-line meetings on Tuesday 16th and Wednesday 17th November, both starting at 7pm. Opening with a presentation by the council parking officers, there will be an opportunity to submit questions that will be answered on the night.
More information on the proposed schemes, and how to take part in the meetings and the consultation is available at https://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/rps
As I have said before, there is clearly good support for a residents’ priority parking permit scheme as long as it is reasonable and affordable as it would make it much easier for local residents to get parked.
At last, after my repeatedly raising the issue rather like a broken record, some progress is now finally taking place.