Demolition is on the cards for a pair of multi-storey blocks that Dundee council said it could not afford to fix up.

The Derby Street demolition will cost £2.4m in total, which councillors said would be a cheaper option for the public purse than bringing the 22-storey flats up to date.

But Sarah Glynn of the University of Edinburgh and the St Andrews Centre for Housing Research has said the flats are being pulled down against the wishes of tenants.

She told an audience at the University of Helsinki last year: "The council's figures do not seem very robust. After they had claimed that it would cost over £14m to bring the Derby Street multis up to Scottish Housing Quality Standards, we contacted Wates Construction, a large private contractor who had done similar work in Glasgow, who gave us an estimate of around £8m. To put this in context, annual rental income, if the buildings had not been being emptied out, would have been £1.2 million."

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She said any potential changes in policy was frozen by "strong resistance from housing department bureaucrats who clearly did not want to backtrack".

Councillors on Dundee's housing committee will be asked on Monday (June 25) to approve a tender from Safedem to bring down the Derby Street multis.

The demolition of Butterburn and Bucklemaker Court and 1-56 Russell Place would start in August and take a year.

Jimmy Black, convener of Dundee City Council's housing committee, said rehousing is under way.

(NE)