THE AUTHORITIES have repaired a fence separating a school playground from an electricity substation.

The issue was highlighted by The Courier yesterday, when a concerned parent revealed that children at Charleston Primary School in Dundee were climbing through a hole in the fence and playing with the high-voltage transformer during break times.

Gary Findlay—whose children Connor (6) and Daniel (5) attend the school—said the children’s games included spraying water on the Dunholm Place substation and wedging sticks into it.

According to Mr Findlay, teachers had warned pupils to stay away from the area, nicknamed the Den, but made no attempts to get it safely sealed off again.

Council workmen acted quickly to repair the hole in the fence yesterday.

Their efforts were praised by Bob Duncan, SNP councillor for Lochee, who said, “There was prompt action all around, especially by the head teacher who expressed a strong desire for the issue to be resolved quickly and the children be protected.

“It was low-risk but any risk is unacceptable and much has been done about warning children of the dangers of electricity.”

Mr Duncan said a teacher was standing guard over the hole as children arrived for their lessons, while workmen set about fixing it.

Representatives from Scottish Hydro Electric were also there.

“My understanding is that it was reported on Friday and things were being put in place for the fence to be repaired today (Monday),” Mr Duncan said.

“I’ve no idea why the substation is so close to the school but there is obviously a need for it.

“We always appreciate it when parents highlight these problems and we are hopeful there will be no recurrence of the problem.”

A spokeswoman for Scottish Hydro Electric said an engineer checked the site on Saturday.

“Basically as soon as we were made aware of the issue we passed the information on to our engineers to check it out,” she said.

“The engineer confirmed the substation was safe and said he was satisfied there was no danger.

“It was housed in an enclosed unit within a compound and, while people could access the compound, there is no way they could access any of the unit’s internal parts.”

He passed information on to the correct department, who arrived at the site yesterday to find council staff already at work.

Lord Provost John Letford, who lives near the school, said he was “concerned” when he heard about the problem.

“What concerns me is what communication is taking place, and I’ll be looking into that,” he said.

He will ask for regular inspections of substations.