The Dundee Civic Trust motto is “encouraging the best” and chairman Jack Searle does not feel the parliament building, currently under construction in Edinburgh, is the best for Scotland.

Unlike most, he does not cite the spiralling cost of the building — which is now over 10 times more than the initial £38million estimate, — as his main bugbear, but its location.

“We would like to see more decentralisation from the Central Belt,” said Mr Searle.

“Because of the kind of city it is, Edinburgh is full up.

“Rather than showing everything in the capital, I think we should be taking the Dutch line. They use rings of development, spreading building out of the capital and into surrounding towns.

“The area in which they are constructing the new parliament is already congested, and I feel that one of two alternatives would have been better.

“Either to build it in a town like Stirling, which is in the centre of Scotland, and would change the whole pattern of development — I mean Canberra, Washington and Brasilia were not capitals.

“Or alternatively, if you are determined to have it in Edinburgh, then it should have been built in Leith where there was land available, instead of plugging it into an already busy area.”

Nevertheless, whilst Mr Searle clearly has strong opinions on the new Scottish Parliament, he is prepared to have his mind changed when he sees the building for himself.

“We are taking the trip because we have decided we would like to see what the building is really like,” continued Mr Searle.

“There has been a great deal of talk in the abstract about the building, but this is no substitute for seeing what it’s actually like.

“This is the most significant building that has been constructed in Scotland for some considerable time and those looking after the buildings of a city have a duty to have a good knowledge of other buildings.

“We are going to go along and see what can be learned from it.”