A public consultation exercise on the controversial Whitesands flood prevention scheme in Dumfries has been restarted.
An administrative error resulted in some opponents to the £25 million project failing to get the correct paperwork.
And the authority, which launched the original six-week consultation on January 22, decided to restart the whole process again.
John Dowson, an opponent of the scheme and a member of the Save Our Sands group, described the situation as “a shambles”.
Mr Dowson said: “The leadership of this council is a mess and a disgrace. This is absolutely unacceptable.”
Normally once a public consultation process starts it cannot be stopped. However, the authority realised that some people on the mailing list did not receive the paperwork.
A council spokesperson said: “During this six-week period the project team realised the notification list was incomplete and it was considered, in consultation with colleagues in legal services, the most appropriate way to correct this was to restart the notification process and the six-week appeal period, from February 26.”
However, the authority had to send the second mailshot again as only one page instead of two were sent out.
Mr Dowson said: “It’s another shambles that they couldn’t get it right at the third attempt.
“They’ve said once the process starts it cannot be stopped. However, they have shown that’s not the case.
“If they can stop this once they can stop it again until we’re out of lockdown and people can meet to discuss it properly.”
On Thursday the administration confirmed its budget for next year with the Whitesands project being a point of discussion.
Tory group leader Ian Carruthers said they “made it clear” in their budget that they do not support the scheme and proposed to remove funding for it.
The Labour/SNP administration did not include funding for the project in its budget proposal as it was deemed too early to do so.
Council leader Elaine Murray yesterday defended the authority’s position.
She said: “The administration is not a shambles. That’s absolute nonsense and quite frankly I’m not going to be drawn into a hysterical argument with Mr Dowson.
“It’s quite clear – at the moment we have a legal process going on, we don’t know when that will be concluded. There’s no point in putting any funding against it this year because we don’t know what we’ll be able to do this year at the moment.
She added: “When or if that changes the relevant information will go to the communities committee for a decision. That’s quite clear.
“It’s simply hysteria.”
Finance committee chairman Adam Wilson said: “The administration’s position on the Whitesands hasn’t changed.
“We have taken a consistent approach. There’s a legal process under way and what we’re doing in this budget is allocating money to Langholm and Newton Stewart flood defence schemes because they’re a bit ahead.
“We’ll allocate to the Whitesands once we’re able to do so. Legal consultation is under way and this administration’s position is we’ll accept the outcome of any consultation.”
Article originally appeared on the Daily Record
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