Conflict over driving ban at Fintry Primary

Proposals to introduce a driving prohibition at Fintry Primary School have been approved by councillors despite concerns from local residents.

The Safer School Streets initiative will introduce part-time driving bans at six schools in Dundee on school days, from 8.30 to 9.15am and from 3 to 3.30pm.

Fintry Primary School will be one of the first schools to have the new measures put in place later this year after the plans were approved by Dundee City Council’s city development committee yesterday.

Only residents of the school street, based at Findcastle Terrace, will be permitted to drive during pick up and drop-offs. The exemptions also apply to emergency vehicles and contracted school taxis.

Alongside Fintry, Downfield Primary, Craigiebarn Primary, North East Campus (which includes Longhaugh and St Francis primaries), Coldside Campus (which consists of Rosebank and Our Lady’s primaries) and St Andrew’s Primary have been marked for priority intervention.

However, Simon Redmond, treasurer of Fintry Community Council, opposed the plans amid concerns local residents had not been properly consulted due to Covid-19.

The community council also feared the plans were exclusionary towards blue badge holders who were not granted exemptions.

Mr Redmond said: “We asked for an extension for the comments to be allowed back because we didn’t feel the consultation was adequate enough.

“The boards that were put up on the lamp-posts were taken down within one day in my local area.

“If we were given the extra time to gather more public responses there would have been a lot more objection to this.

“As a community council, we support broadly the traffic calming measures and we support the 20mph permit zones,” he added.

“But we feel there are a lot more questions than answers that have come back regarding this.”

In response, Ewan Mcnaughton, head of sustainable transport and roads at Dundee City Council, said several consultations had taken place to log concerns from residents.

The group also raised concerns over the Finmill Centre which would be subject to the prohibition due to its close proximity to the school.

An amendment to remove Fintry from the scheme was proposed by North East councillor Gregor Murray, however it was rejected by the committee.

Councillor Murray said: “I really don’t think this is the right area.

“It doesn’t just impact on the school, which is obviously the aim, but it also impacts on the community centre and the library which share the same public space.”

It is hoped the scheme will have a positive effect on the safety of pupils by limiting vehicle access and encouraging pupils to walk or cycle to school.

Discussing the efforts to make schools safer, Stewart Hunter, children and families convener, said: “It’s important to highlight that the vast majority of parents when they drop their kids off to school or pick them up, do it very responsibly, very safely.

“But there is a minority of parents who certainly put young people at risk when they drop off or pick up kids from school.

“All of us could probably give examples of things we’ve seen when on site visits that have horrified us.”