Strathmartine Connections

About

Strathmartine Connections

Strathmartine Connections aims to create new and improved placemaking throughout St Leonard Park and into the greenspace at Baldragon Academy, with road safety improvements at St Andrews Primary School, Strathmartine roundabout and the nearby streets and greenspaces, making it easier, safer and more attractive for people walking, wheeling and cycling.

You can read more about the interventions that are being considered and the background of the project in the sections below.

Climate Adaptation

Residents who live around St Leonard Park have for a long time experienced flooding and significant disruption to property during storms and extreme weather events. As a response to this challenge and the predicted increase in events due to Climate Change, Water Resilient Dundee, a partnership between Dundee City Council and Scottish Water, are developing a Sustainable Drainage Strategy for the area.

Photos from left to right: St Leonard Road, behind Saint Leonard's & St. Fergus Church, Roundabout, outside St Andrew's Primary

This project proposes to re-open the Back Burn which currently runs beneath St Leonard Park and will create an open watercourse through the park that continues through the greenspaces at Baldragon Academy.

This proposal provides an exciting opportunity to showcase what can be achieved by retrofitting sustainable drainage into an existing landscape. It aims to create imaginative multifunctional, multi-beneficial nature based solutions which will provide improvements not only for drainage, but also for recreation, biodiversity, nature, active travel, community identity and health and wellbeing.

When the St Leonard Park Regeneration was first presented to the public, there was a lot of feedback suggesting that improvements to the park would be great, but that there is a need to make it safer, easier and more attractive to travel to and through the park.

For that reason Strathmartine Connections is developing new walking and cycling routes through the park and to nearby schools, shops and clubs.

Maximising investment

These improvements will require significant investment which will transform St Leonard Park and Strathmartine Roundabout. To ensure that the investment creates as much value as possible, the project also aims to include a new walking and cycling route connecting Macalpine Road to Harestane Road, Laird Street to Camperdown Road and Strathmartine Road tying together the local schools, supporting and enabling more of the community to walk, wheel and cycle to school and the new park facilities.

Making the park nicer, safer and more accessible for all users will also bring great health and wellbeing benefits and encourage more residents to use active travel to access businesses, shops and sports clubs.

Strathmartine Connections currently consists of 7 interventions that we welcome your feedback on. The interventions are

Permanent School Street on St Leonard Place at St Andrew’s Primary School
Cycle track and "park and stride"
Park regeneration to improve play opportunities and reduce flooding
Improve Strathmartine Roundabout
New route to Baldragon Academy
Cycle Skills Course
(Future) route to Camperdown Road

You can see all the interventions on the map above. The project will still include all the proposed improvements to the park that were developed for the Sustainable Drainage Project, which you can see here .

Project Objectives

1. Climate Adaptation

Developing the walking and cycle routes in parallel with Scottish Water’s Drainage Strategy to reduce the risk of flooding in and around St Leonard Park.
Enhance bio-diversity and increase the value of local eco-system services
Design multi-functional nature-based solutions can play a powerful role in reducing temperatures over the remainder of the century

2. Walking & Cycling

Improve the quality of walking, wheeling and cycling paths to and through St Leonard Park.
Make walking and cycling the natural first choice for travelling to school and make sure that routes and roads are safe for older children to travel alone.
Make better connections through St Leonard Park and Strathmartine Roundabout to Dundee’s Active Travel Network, especially the Green Circular.

3. Green Spaces & Play

Create safe and inclusive routes through local streets and park
Create attractive squares and greenspaces that encourage dwelling and gathering.

4. Community

Ensure opinions of local residents and stakeholders are considered in the design process.

Proposals

The design team is currently developing concept design for the drainage and active travel elements. Proposals have been crafted based on the previous feasibility study and community feedback. A consultation event on the 6^th of November 2024 which showcased the proposals in detail, the consultation boards can be downloaded here.

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What could the proposals look like?

Overview

The map to the right shows the Project Design boundary (white) along with the Neighbourhood boundary (blue). If on a mobile device please use the expand at the top right to view fully.

If you live, work, study in, visit or travel through the area, we’re interested in hearing your thoughts on the proposals.

1. St Leonard Place - permanent school street

Current: One piece of feedback from the St Leonard Park consultation was that many parents did not feel comfortable letting their children walk or cycle to school because St Leonard Place had too much and too fast traffic. We’ve also been told of challenges during school drop off and pick up times when many drivers ignore the access restrictions and where cars are double parked on double yellow lines, on zig-zags and even inside the park. There have been 3 recorded pedestrian or cycle accidents recorded at the school between 2017 and 2019.

Proposed: Closing St Leonard Place to traffic outside the primary school would create a pleasant public space where parents can gather and children can play. It would also open up the park and make it more attractive to spend time in the area. Access is retained to the church and the new housing development from St Leonard Place but the school car park would be reached via St Leonard Road. St Leonard Road from St Marys Road would become a one-way street (south and westbound), this would include St Leonard Place to Cox Street, this would allow short-stay parking for parents to pick up children in these areas and reduce the chaos of the school run.

Rain gardens captured the rain water that runs off the street and can act as a filter to clean the water before it infiltrates or runs to the wider water network. If designed well it can also deter inconsiderate driving and parking on narrow streets.

Apart from the Play Park the proposed design includes stepping stones, boardwalks and stoops that can both serve as a resting spot for elderly as well as playful challenges for the youngest users.

Swipe to see existing (left) and proposed (right) outside the school

2. Cycle track and “Park and Stride”

Current: St Leonard Place, St Leonard Road sees a lot of inappropriate behaviour during the school run, and with narrow footways the route to school is unattractive to those outside a car.

Proposed: A new two-way cycle track through the greenspace on St Leonard Road would provide an attractive cycle route from St Leonard Park to Laird St and the Dundee Green Circular (a cycle route around the perimeter of Dundee). St Leonard Road (St Marys Road to St Leonards Place) would be changed to a one-way street to allow the footway on the school side to be widened and a long “kiss and ride” zone would provide a space for parents to park while dropping off or collecting their children from school and nursery.

See the proposal area in orange on the map.

3. Park regeneration to improve play opportunities and reduce flooding

Proposed: The St. Mary’s Drainage project proposes to re-open the burn which currently runs in a pipe under the church grounds and the waters would flow through the park for everyone to see and enjoy.

This would also be an opportunity to update the church car park and improve the church ground with new paving and planting to make it a more welcoming.

The visual to right was created by Optimised Environments (OPEN) design for the first round of engagement in 2021.

4. Roundabout Options

Current issues:

The area has several issues affecting accessibility and safety
The park is inaccessible for people with disabilities, and footways with overgrowth reduce pedestrian comfort
High-speed car exit from the roundabout making crossing dangerous
The roundabout’s design creates an unusable greenspace.
On Balgowan Avenue and Baldovan Road, high-speed traffic makes crossing unsafe
There is no off-road path to Baldragon Academy and Sidlaw View Primary, leaving the greenspace unused
Cycling is dangerous due to high vehicle speeds
Additional green space is needed to provide a new basin to manage rainwater and minimise flooding

Proposed Option 1: proposes changing the roundabout to a signal controlled junction

Changing the roundabout to a signal controlled junction will make it safer and easier for people walking and cycling to travel through the junction. With the right design the junction would still accommodate the current level of traffic with minimal impact on traffic flows.

Proposed Option 2: proposes to re-design the current roundabout

A re-designed roundabout with an improved design that ensures vehicles exit the roundabout at a slower speed to make it safer for people walking and cycling. Controlled crossings would allow pedestrians and cycles a safer route through the park and to nearby schools and sports clubs

5. New route to Baldragon Academy

Proposed: Opening the path between St Leonard’s and St Fergus Church and Lidl would create a new gateway to St Leonard Park from Macalpine Road. The proposal will create a new Active Travel Network to and through St Leonard park and allow people to walk, wheel and cycle on off-road paths all the way from the greenspaces on Birkdale Place to the football fields at Baldragon Academy.

The route would tie into the Dundee City Council’s wider Active Travel network but would also be a great help for children and young people walking and cycling to school.

See route in orange on the map.

6. Cycle Skills Course

Proposed: One of the comments during the first engagement was that the high school would benefit from having a cycle skills course (pump track) in their greenspace. This would encourage more students to bring their bike to school and would also be a fun activity for them, it would also be open to the general public.

The course could be designed with a lowered central area so it can function as an overflow basin to capture and retain storm water and reduce the risk of flooding further downstream. An idea of what the proposed could look like can be seen below and the location is on the map.

Sourced here. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

7. (Future) route to Camperdown Road

As a longer term ambition, the improved walking and cycling routes to and through St Leonard Park would also be extended south, to create a safe and attractive connection via Teviotdale Avenue and Frederick Street to Camperdown Road and Strathmartine Road.

The connection can be seen in orange on the map.

We would value your feedback on the above proposals

Please use the Form below to tell us your thoughts. The survey is open until 5pm on Friday 31^st January.

Share your views

Community Engagement

A community event was held on the 6^th November at St Leonard’s and St Fergus Church with the aim of gaining the local community’s views on the proposals above. The consultation boards for the event can be viewed here, these give a higher level of detail into the proposals.

Photos from Consultation Event on 6th November 2024

Share your views

As part of the engagement we would also like to gain feedback on how we can improve walking, wheeling and accessibility connections to the Schools and Community facilities within the wider Neighbourhood boundary (blue).

Please leave as many comments and ideas as you like on our Placecheck map below, which will remain live throughout the project.

Think about what issues you experience and where there are problems that you would like to see sorted.

Problems could include: areas where you don’t feel safe | places where it’s difficult to cross the road | places where it’s difficult to push a wheelchair, or walk or cycle with children

These are the standard Placecheck pins:

Green =something I like
Red = something I don't like
Orange = something that needs work

Placecheck Online

Strathmartine Connections is a part of Water Resilient Dundee and the project is being delivered by Dundee City Council, Scottish Water, Sustrans and Transport Scotland.