Dundee City Council has insisted that its newest multi-storey car park is not a white elephant, despite latest figures suggesting that less than a half of its spaces are regularly filled.
However, Labour opposition leader Kevin Keenan is unimpressed by the argument for the Olympia site and is calling for it to be mothballed to save money for the cash-starved local authority.
The council opened the car park, next to the new £31 million Olympia swimming pool, last summerbut has struggled to fill anything close to its 502 spaces across 13 split levels.
A major reason for the lack of customers is that it is next door to the Gallagher Retail Park, where motorists enjoy free parking for up to two hours. Two hours’ parking at Olympia costs £1.70.
Therefore the Olympia site is only attractive to drivers leaving their vehicles for longer periods and new figures obtained from the council by The Courier suggest there have not been very many of them.
Figures for usage since the car park opened were: July 8,319; August 5,561; September 3,770; October 5,390; November 3,784 and December 4,456.
This translates to an average of as few as 112 visits per day in September and as many as 268 per day in July.
Last month, when car parks can expect to be busy with shoppers, the Olympia site had a daily average of 143 visits way below its 502-space capacity.
On Saturday, when the wet weather made the swimming pool an inviting indoor recreation, our photographer found the car park much less than half full.
A council spokesman said: “As with every new car park we expect fluctuating numbers of drivers to use them until people become more aware of, and used to, using the facility.
“Numbers are broadly in line with what we anticipated and we expect those to increase in the coming months.
“This car park is located on the edge of the inner ring road and forms part of the long-term parking strategy to provide high-quality multi-storey car parks with safe, convenient and modern facilities, replacing the many surface-level car parks,” he added.
But Councillor Keenan sees a problem.
“When you’ve driven through the town and all these spaces are empty, you wonder why we’ve built so many spaces,” he said.
“We’ve spent far too much too early on things like car parks which at this moment in time aren’t needed.
“The council is facing something like a £350,000 fall in income from car parks this year and a few days ago the SNP administration outlined cuts of more than £7m to balance the budget for next year.
“How much are we spending on lighting and servicing the Olympia car park and is this the best use of money, considering the few people who use it?
“I am asking officers for a report on how much money could be saved by mothballing this car park until there is evidence that more people will use it.”