The councillor whose amendment led to the “bizarre” decision to back only half of the Dundee Western Gateway project has described the affair as “a comedy of errors”.
Ian Borthwick said Dundee City Council’s development management committee meeting had “failed lamentably in dealing with the issues” by approving the second part of the application which contains no community facilities other than a football pitch and a playpark.
Mr Borthwick felt the message to developers Springfield from the councillors should have been to reject both parts on the grounds of lack of primary education provision, telling them to come back with a new application that included plans to build a school.
He said: “Mr Galloway (city development director) said the last thing they wanted was empty units. Well if they built 600 houses the majority of them family homes without having a primary school there he would get plenty of empty units because people would choose not to live there.
“What’s left fell far short of what we could expect. It was a comedy of errors.”
Mr Borthwick was unrepentant over his stance, stating that he was consistent throughout and pointing to the number of councillors from all sides who backed his amendment.
“I would hope that the developers would come back with proposals which would include provision for primary education,” he said.
Councillor Ken Lynn said: “To reject this amount of high-quality houses, this amount of jobs, on the grounds that it’s too far from schools points to madness.”
Meanwhile, the city council’s education convener Stewart Hunter moved to clarify his position by voting with Mr Borthwick’s amendment.
He stressed he backed the amendment not because he had any concerns with the proposals to send children to Ardler Primary and Baldragon Secondary.
Rather, he said, he felt not enough answers had been given to depute lord provost Christina Roberts’ questions to officers on environmental issues that had been raised by local objectors.
He told The Courier: “As the education convener I have no issues at all with Ardler or Baldragon and the Western Gateway.
“My concern was that I had listened to the objectors and they made their concerns very clear.
“I didn’t think there were enough answers and I didn’t think there were enough community facilities.
“I voted both times with the amendment, but not on the educational issue. I had other concerns and I didn’t want my vote to be misinterpreted.”