A long-running row over a 40ft strip of land at the heart of a planned Aberdeen road project has rumbled on.
The city council has sought to buy the land on Wellington Road to allow quicker traffic access on the Torry street – one of the most polluted in Scotland.
The area has been valued at around £230,000, which the council would have to buy from the Scottish Government.
However, members of the previous Labour-led administration offered just £1 – arguing that, given cuts to the local authority’s grant funding, the Scottish Government should foot the bill.
The council is investigating eventually widening Wellington Road – adding a second lane southbound.
Yesterday the opposition SNP group tabled a motion to take the Scottish Government offer and start the work, pointing to the £8million pumped in by Holyrood into affordable housing on the former Craiginches site.
But members of the Conservative, Aberdeen Labour and Independent administration queried the six-figure price tag for a piece of land.
SNP finance spokesman Alex Nicoll said: “This strip of land is essential if the council are going to finish dualling Wellington Road. It allows the council to get rid of this pinch-point and help improve access to our city from the south, when the time is right.
“The committee previously chanced its luck here. We cannot ask the Scottish Government to hold onto this land forever while the administration once again trying to get political mileage out of a 12 metre strip of land.
“The south of our city deserves a road network suitable for the 21st century and it is unacceptable that our council’s coalition of chaos are continuing to dither, delay and defer and are making a political mockery of this situation.”
But council leader Jenny Laing said the administration was “trying to get the best deal” for the city and referred to the £75million put in by the administration into the AWPR.
She added that some newly elected councillors had not been given enough information to make a decision.
She said: “Let’s not be flippant – this is £230,000 of taxpayer’s money that the SNP wants us to spend based on six lines in a business statement.
“I think the people of Aberdeen want leadership from the townhouse, not from Holyrood.”
The SNP were defeated by nine votes to eight.
A report is expected to be brought back in September with options for the land.