Dundee old age home under threat from environmental pollution

It’s not only businesses that have been affected by the deterioration of Dundee’s central business district (CBD)… Eventide Home for the Aged is also up against anti-social behaviour and environmental pollution.
A line of shacks, from where food and other goods are sold, have been erected against a concrete wall in Smith Street (that borders Eventide).
Residents have long complained of ‘choking smoke’ from fires made for cooking, coming into their cottages.
The smoke is especially detrimental to those with respiratory problems.
The wall facing Smith Street has been burnt black from the smoke.
The associated noise has also impacted on life at Eventide, which for many years has been caring for the elderly in the community.
There are also concerns that drug-users gather in the area to ‘share needles’.
“We have often seen them doing this in broad daylight,” said one resident who lives nearby (but did not want to be named).
Ironically, the newly-built concrete trading stalls in Smith Street, directly opposite the shacks, remain unused even though these were officially opened some months ago by Mayor Ndlovu and the management of Buffalo Coal, who sponsored the project.
The gate at the perimeter was locked when the Courier visited the site and the only sign of activity was a couple of men playing a game with dice on the pavement.
One trader said they did not want to use the stalls, as there is a fee and the stalls are not close to where pedestrians are.
However, it is yet to be ascertained if a fee is required from those wishing to use the stalls.
Cllr Naresh Gopie, chairperson of the Municipal Pubic Accounts Committee, confirmed that the stalls were not yet operational, as the municipality was still busy with the allocation process for traders.
“Once that process has been completed, the stalls will be operational.”
Eventide Home manager Karen Glasgow said that numerous letters had been sent to the municipality and the Health Department, but there is yet to be a response.

The response will be published once it has been received.

Eventide is also affected by what they say is the illegal sale of alcohol in the area.

“This brings people to the area and not the kind of people we want to attract, where there are elderly folk.”
Despite the large ‘no loitering’ signs recently put up by the municipality outside Eventide in Beaconsfield Street, schoolchildren continue to gather in the afternoons on the pavement and their ‘noise levels are also not acceptable’, the Home said.

Across the road from the Home, a vacant plot has been turned into a recycling business. It is not clear if the operation has been officially sanctioned.
Mac Osman, a community safety officer, said it was concerning that the CBD was deteriorating ‘simply because by-laws are not being adhered to’.
“Once laws are not implemented, we see a drop in standards; and ultimately, people and businesses leave the CBD.”

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