A year has passed since I started writing this column.
That first week I complained Dundee’s boundaries were too tightly drawn and, 12 months later, they still are.
Nothing has been done.
I’ll keep bringing this up until justice is done.
I am convinced the likes of Invergowrie, Birkhill, Monifieth, Newport, etc. are naturally parts of the Dundee urban area.
A few things have changed in the past year.
With Angus Council to implement monthly instead of fortnightly bin collections, people are going to take extra rubbish to recycling centres. But Monifieth’s centre has closed.
Do you think Monifiethians will go to Carnoustie recycling centre (not open every day) or 12 miles to Arbroath? No, they’ll drive to Baldovie.
Do Invergowrie folk travel to Perth & Kinross’s Blairgowrie recycling centre (14 miles) or Friarton? (15 miles)
No. They go to Riverside a few hundred yards along the road.
If you use Dundee’s public services you should pay council tax to Dundee.
There are housing developments springing up all around Dundee’s periphery. Who will move to those houses?
It will be Dundee folk. But they’ll pay tax to Angus or Perth, shrinking Dundee’s revenues – death by a thousand cuts.
Invergowrie medical centre closed, its patients now go to Ancrum.
GP practices have little to do with city boundaries but look at the repeating pattern – close-by folk come to Dundee for services.
Monifieth is joined to Barnhill, but 17 miles from the Angus Council headquarters in Forfar.
Invergowrie is a step from Dundee but 18 miles from Perth. Newport is closer to Dundee city centre than Downfield, but 22 miles from Fife House in Glenrothes.
Why is Dundee’s boundary suffocatingly tight while every other city is bigger?
Aberdeen City Council area is 72 square miles, Edinburgh 102, Falkirk 115.
Dundee is 24 square miles – by far the smallest local authority in Scotland.
Examine a map and puzzle over why Peterculter, 10 miles away through several greenfield gaps, is within the Aberdeen city boundary – while Monifieth, six miles through a continuously built-up area, isn’t part of Dundee?
The conclusion is simple. The greater Dundee area is a single community, sharing facilities and services, sharing workers, shoppers, recreation, and culture.
I’m not asking for preferential treatment, all I want is fairness.
Who will be Dundee’s boundary hero?
Everyone will benefit from a populous, thriving city in our midst. Our voice is louder, our opinion hits harder, we are more difficult to ignore.
Who should take up cudgels? I’d say a councillor, it is their boundary which needs to change.
But all the city’s councillors, MSPs and MPs should unite to fight for this. It’s a chance to right a longstanding wrong, an opportunity to make a tangible and lasting difference.
We’ll need a person of character to champion this. Someone with an iron will, who can organise an energetic and intelligent campaign, who doesn’t mind ruffling feathers, and refuses to take no for an answer. Someone with guts.
We need a hero. Is there one in Dundee?
Read Steve’s first column here.
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