MONEY earmarked for upgrading the council headquarters in Dumfries would be better spent on transforming overgrown paths across the region, a councillor argued this week.
Dumfries and Galloway Council’s environment teams are struggling to keep up with maintaining core paths due to extreme weather and riverbank erosion.
This has resulted in around 300 complaints from residents over the past year who have been unable to access walkways due to overgrown vegetation, fallen trees, or other blockages.
The matter was discussed by councillors last week, who noted the rise in complaints and the need for more investment in resources.
Annandale South Councillor Ian Carruthers said: “We have a £4.5m capital spend identified for English Street, but would we want to prioritise English Street’s Dumfries and Galloway Council headquarters – or wider projects like this?
“My view would be very much the second, not the first.”
Simon Fieldhouse, the council’s environment manager, and Bryan Scott, the council’s countryside development officer, told councillors that a very small team with limited resources is battling to maintain 1800 km of core paths.
Workers are facing a backlog of path improvements, while extreme weather and riverbank erosion has resulted in several core paths requiring substantial repairs or investigations into potential diversions.
Bryan Scott said: “The greatest issue at the moment is managing the public’s expectations of the standard of the core path network.
“We are currently in year three of a four-year contract for priority path cutting, but that is the bare minimum that we can actually cut within the available budget that we have for path cutting.
“At the moment we haven’t got a budget sum identified for next year.
“From the number of enquiries we get and complaints about paths, the number one issue is that they’re overgrown.
“Most people think that if we’re promoting a core path then it should at least be accessible. So that is something we need to remedy.”
Simon Fieldhouse added: “Just to reiterate that our annual budget for path improvements is sitting at just around £400,000 per year, spread across from Stranraer all the way to Langholm, and everywhere in between.
“So obviously that resource doesn’t go too far.”
