I’m going to present a paragraph of Dundee City Council-speak. Then give a translation.
The council-speak is: “This valuable greenspace will support Dundee’s nature network, with increased biodiversity, habitat and climate-resilient woodland areas, as nature restoration funding becomes available.”
The translation is: “We haven’t got a clue what to do”.
They should probably add: “We bumble from one shambles to another, without a plan, without a thought how we might do things differently, and we talk about as much sense as Bill & Ben the Flowerpot Men.”
That council paragraph was, of course, in their press release about closing Caird Park golf courses.
Have you ever read such twaddle?
‘Cynical attempt’
If they really had plans to create an area of increased biodiversity, they’d be putting in beehives, wetlands, planting trees, bushes and wildflowers to encourage wildlife.
But they are only pretending.
They think claiming this is all part of some environmentally friendly strategy will get the green lobby on their side.
It’s a cynical attempt to use environmental issues as a shield.
The worst bit is that the council think you, the people of Dundee, are too stupid to see through this farrago of incompetence and panic.
They should be honest.
They closed it because they can’t manage their budget and now, because they’re incapable of proper planning, can’t think what to do with the land.
Make no mistake, if they got an offer of a private company taking over Cairdy golf, their sanctimonious biodiverse bubble would be instantly popped.
If they really had “nature restoration funding becoming available”, a councillor would be standing in front of a computer-generated graphic of a woodland paradise with (probably) parakeets and giraffes added, claiming to have saved planet Earth.
Instead, we got: “A spokesperson for the local authority said…”
That’s always what we get when no councillor wants to be associated with a difficult matter.
They cower away and get the eye-wateringly expensive, but anonymous, chai latte-sipping PR team to dream up a word salad.
‘New vandals’ playground in the city’
The councillors know that any of them spouting that “climate-resilient woodland areas” fantasy would be laughed at.
They know they’d be asked, when the giraffes fail to appear, “what was that you said about a biodiverse area?” – as trail-bikers dodge smashed beer bottles, used needles and burned-out cars on what used to be the ninth fairway.
Dundee City Council (minimum 20% pay rise), Gregory Colgan (£160k a year) and his team of bountifully paid council officers, and Leisure & Culture Dundee (led by Judy Dobbie on £114k), have combined their talents to bring a new vandals’ playground to your city.
For all that money you’d think we’d be able to find people with initiative, innovative plans, and the drive to turn them into reality.
Or at least some idea what to do next.
But they, demonstrably, have no ideas. No plans. No ambition.
They shut one of the city’s major sporting facilities and just walk away, refusing to even talk about it.
Caird Park, as it disintegrates into a problem no-go area, will stand as a representation of the way this city is mismanaged.
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