Residents in a Dundee cul-de-sac have hit out over the lack of maintenance of a controversial piece of land on their street.
A grassy area on Gotterstone Drive, which had been listed on most homeowners’ deeds as public land, was revealed as being privately-owned in 2016.
After a protracted dispute, planning permission for a single house to be built on the plot was passed on a 15-11 vote by the council in February.
However, no building work has started and the grass, which had previously been cut by the local authority, has been left to grow “wild”.
Gotterstone Drive resident Hazel Smith, 71, said: “As far as we were concerned the land was public and for years, the council maintained it and children played on it.
“Then, when the homeowner living opposite that land, at number 61, went to sell his house, all of a sudden it turned out the plot was his.
“The council then stopped maintaining it and a property company bought it from that resident when he sold the house.
“The company has since sold it to another individual, who we haven’t been able to trace.
“There’s planning permission to build a house there, but nothing has been built and the grass hasn’t been cut at all this year.
“It’s been left to grow wild and the place is full of weeds and vermin – there are all kinds of bugs, mice and even rats. It’s an eyesore and we’re sick of it.”
Fellow resident Elizabeth Wright, 84, added: “It’s terrible, it seems like we’re hitting a brick wall.
“I came here 22 years ago and back then there were trees and a rose bed there. The kids played on the land and we held street parties, for example when we had the Queen’s Jubilee. Now it’s a wasteland.”
Dundee City Council confirmed the land is privately owned and not the local authority’s responsibility to maintain.
The individual who is believed to be the current owner of the land could not be reached.
