Transport Scotland has become embroiled in a public feud with Dundee FC chief executive John Nelms after he accused them of holding up the club’s plans for a new stadium.
The agency has called out the Tayside club’s managing director after he slammed them for wearing out his patience and said he had personally written to them to speed up proceedings.
The Premiership side had been hoping to playing in a 12,500-seater arena in Camperdown to the north of the city as early as this year, says the Scottish Sun.
Traffic management is “the last remaining issue” but Transport Scotland have taken aim at Dark Blues decision-makers and insist the delay is all their own doing.
They say it’s up to the club to produce workable traffic solutions, which they have not done.
It was revealed today that the future of the Camperdown site wouldn’t be decided this month amid the ongoing wranglings, despite the planning application having been lodged last February.
Nelms believes 14 months should have been “plenty of time to certainly get a planning in principle through”.
He revealed that Dundee have already spent nearly £3m just to get to this stage.
“I am a very patient person, I have been here 12 and a half years, but my patience is not infinite, so it is getting to the point where I think the process needs to be moved on a little bit,” Nelms said. “It is very frustrating because we thought we would be built by now.”
A Transport Scotland spokesperson told BBC Scotland the agency had raised concerns with the council about the lack of progress being made by the developers and their consultants.
“For clarity, it is the developer’s responsibility to promote an access strategy that meets the needs of their proposed development, supported by a robust assessment of its impact on the local and trunk road network,” they said.
“Neither of the trunk road junction options proposed in recent months has been shown to be effective and the supporting traffic figures remain open to considerable uncertainty.
“We have repeatedly shown willingness to engage with the developer to address these issues.”
(Pic: Dundee Football Club)
