Thursday 7 February 2008

Scamnesty, Rail Noise and CCTV

I had a very useful visit to Tayside Police's headquarters yesterday to review CCTV provision around the Seabraes area.


This follows a number of residents' concerns about anti-social behaviour here in the past and, along with our community policeman, I was keen to see the extent of existing provision, which I conclude from yesterday's visit is generally good. Within the West End, a clear priority has to be extending the provision westwards from Roseangle, along Perth Road to Sinderins (in other words, through the district shopping centre, especially given its vibrant night time economy with pubs and restaurants). This is a matter on which I have written to Tayside Police on a number of occasions.




Also yesterday saw the launch of "Scamnesty" in the City, a really useful initiative to encourage Dundonians to help Trading Standards catch the fraudsters behind mail scams. You can read more about this excellent idea from the BBC website by clicking on the headline above.




On another matter, I am very pleased about swift action taken over the past week by Network Rail contractors to tackle night noise complaints by residents living in parts of the West End nearest to the Tay Rail Bridge.

I received a number of complaints about noise from the bridge works overnight just over a week ago and immediately contacted Network Rail about this. There has been a swift response by Network Rail’s contractors, T-K Palmers Limited, who undertook night noise measurements at various local sites on a number of separate occasions.




Speaking with residents over the past couple of days, they have seen no repetition of the earlier night-time noise disturbance.




The contractor has advised that, with regard to night shift operations, it is envisaged that they will be carrying out blast cleaning work over the next 3 months but in areas well to the south of the residential area and they would not expect an impact on anyone in that period.

T-K Palmers advised me that:



“We are conscious of the fact that we all have varying thresholds of sensitivity to noise and with that in mind we ensured purchase / hire of the most sound-attenuated equipment for our operations. It would also be fair to say that until we tried our own measures to attenuate noise at actual equipment sites, we were unable to predict their effect.




"However, with the assistance of the City Council, we were subsequently able to confirm compliance with legislation even considering the effects of such factors as wind direction and the effect of tree foliage. Operations the past week have been concentrated very much to the south of the carriageway and there is no intention to be at the north elevation for a considerable time so we would expect any impact to be substantially reduced locally.”