If the current state of Camperdown Park is an indication of Dundee’s future as a city then Dante’s warning “abandon hope all ye who enter here” will be very apt.
Known to generations of Dundonians as Campy, the park has been a place where families traditionally enjoyed Easter celebrations and legions of city golfers drove straight down the middle on as fine a council course as anywhere in Scotland.
I cycled through the park yesterday on the bike to see that since Dundee City Council binned the golf course in April 2020, it’s become an overgrown wasteland, home to dog walkers and dirt bikers who race round the jungle which has mushroomed to replace a once verdant course.
In parts, the park has some attractive features, with the children’s play area popular and the wildlife centre winning a recent Scottish award.
But the overwhelming sense of neglect and ruin of what was a fine golf course, closed due to a supposed lack of money, is a metaphor for the carelessness with which the council has stewarded many of the city’s jewels.
‘Dangerous spectacle’
I share fellow columnist Steve Finan’s anger at our elected members who’ve failed to fight Dundee’s corner.
We want a bustling vibrant city for ourselves, our children and grandchildren.
But as Steve pointed out, the threat to close Caird Park golf course, Broughty Castle and Mills Observatory could see the city lose other famous landmarks.
That would be a dangerous downward spiral and prove those in charge have given up the ghost in batting for Dundee.
Our representatives in City Square are too easy a touch and they make us a soft target for Holyrood when financial cuts are passed down the line.
There’s scarcely a whimper from those in city chambers as the fiscal knife is plunged deep into Dundee’s back.
Instead there’s hand wringing acquiescence from our councillors and SNP MPs and MSPs as the city is skewered with cuts to services.
This increasingly is a council which knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
They are a spent force, without vision, energy, or drive.
‘Talking shops and hot air’
Having taken stick four years ago after their vote to close the golf course to save £400k, plans were later announced to reopen part of Camperdown as a nine-hole course and a driving range, but these are yet to materialise.
Half of the park lies unloved and unused and is testimony to the neglect of a council out of ideas and time.
We know that Dundee faces problems which many other areas also have but we have to fight our own corner if our city is to thrive and prosper.
Talking shops and hot air are no substitute for real positive action and creative thinking.
Dundee is crying out for inspirational and inventive city leaders who can work with businesses both small and large to improve facilities and opportunities for its citizens.
We need risk takers – not knee shakers – when it comes to producing big ideas which will provide the kinds of stimulus needed to boost the city for those who live here, and might want to live here.
Dundee has been an SNP fiefdom for years so now is the perfect opportunity for new leader John Swinney and his party to give something back to the City of Discovery.
We should be angry at being the poor relation compared to other places – and tired of our civic leaders’ meek acceptance of our second-class status.
They should be banging the drum loud and proud and insisting on a much better deal for all Dundonians.
Conversation