A city councillor has called on Dundee City Council to resurrect plans for a priority parking scheme for residents of the West End.
Councillor Fraser Macpherson is adamant that proposals for designated parking for people living on the city’s Perth Road should be revisited as the area struggles from a dearth of vacant parking spaces.
Plans were previously put forward back in 2012 for residents to buy into an £80 per year scheme which would give drivers a designated parking space.
According to Mr Macpherson, motorists booted the plans into touch after learning that the West End scheme was 16 times more expensive than a similar project in Menzieshill.
The Liberal Democrat representative’s call comes after Dundee City Council agreed to review waiting restrictions on Perth Road.
Mr Macpherson said: “This is a very significant issue.
“In my 15 years with Dundee City Council I’ve seen the situation worsen over time.
“More households have cars and a lot of our streets were built in days when there wasn’t the volume of vehicles on the road that there now is.
“I asked for a review of waiting restrictions and it will free up some space, but there is a real need for transportation officials to look at residents’ priority parking again.
“The last proposals were bound to fail as they were fundamentally flawed.
“The council refused to subsidise the costs of the scheme and people objected to that.
“A lot of people also objected to the fact that permits would have cost £80 a year, 16 times more expensive than the scheme in Menzieshill.
“But this is a problem and there is a real need for the council to look again.”
Councillor Will Dawson, Dundee City Council’s city development convener, argued that revisiting the scheme would be a pointless exercise as West End residents have already shown they are not in favour of the proposals.
He said: “We are doing a review of waiting restrictions across the whole of the city to free up parking spaces.
“The west end scheme would have meant that people would have to pay £1.50 a week to get a space right outside their homes, but people didn’t want to pay for it at all.
“I don’t know why we would want to revisit this consultation as we already know what residents of the west end want.”