Barnhill councillor Bruce Mackie said his constituents in the area of the South Balmossie pumping station are becoming so exasperated by the nuisance some of them want the whole system to be switched off.

“That would be an extreme step but I can understand their frustration,” Mr Mackie said today.

“The pipeline was built at a heavy cost — something like £100 million — to clean up the Tay and its beaches, and these aims were very desirable.

“People who live and work along the route of the pipeline have had to put up with this awful smell coming from the system all summer. They think they are having to pay a very high price for the scheme.

“They can’t enjoy their gardens because of the unpleasant odour and they can’t even escape from it into their homes because the smell is so bad it spreads indoors.”

Residents in the Bridge Street area of Barnhill, close to the South Balmossie pumping station, have been plagued by the pong all summer, and made their latest plea for action to Mr Mackie after 10 pm on Friday night.

He explained, “The smell had returned and it was so bad that people couldn’t put up with it. I went down there myself and it was terrible.

“They said they had put up with it all summer and enough was enough. They thought the whole system should be shut down until the problem was properly investigated and cured once and for all.”

Mr Mackie passed on their complaints to the council’s environmental and consumer protection department, which has had an officer on the case for most of the summer. He also notified the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.

The council officer has replied to Mr Mackie saying he was meeting a representative of United Utilities, the operators of the wastewater scheme for Scottish Water, later today.

The councillor has been advised by SEPA that any complaints about the smell should be made to Scottish Water’s customer helpline (0845 601 8855), where they would be logged and investigated.

The SEPA official also told him the problem appears to be caused by the prolonged dry weather over the last few months.

Septicity build up in the pumping main, and after a long spell of dry weather, this leads to a smell emanating from the system.

Colin Anderson, Dundee team leader of SEPA, said the Tay wastewater pipe smell problem is not their responsibility although they were concerned about its effects.

He added, “Scepticity in sewers is a common problem and there are various measures to try to rectify it. Clearly they (the operators of the wastewater system) have to look at what is the most feasible option to try to rectify the problem.”

No comment was available from United Utilities at the time of going to press.

As well as at Barnhill, the unpleasant smell has been upsetting people further upstream, including workers in the area of the pumping station at Stannergate.