John Cole, of Kender Cars, in Sinclair Street, told the Tele his customers have been turned away from his yard by construction work taking place outside his premises — despite assurances the work would not interfere with his business and support would be provided.

The problems began last month when work started on a new £2.4 million housing and social work office for Dundee City Council adjacent to his premises.

Mr Cole was told temporary signage and car parking spaces for his customers would be put in place while the work was ongoing.

He says none of these have materialised — despite the local councillor for Lochee, Jill Shimi, personally assuring him they would.

Mr Cole says lorries arriving to deliver equipment have blocked access to Kender Cars for long periods during business hours and his vehicles are constantly covered in dust blown over from the construction site.

“Enough is enough, we want to know who is responsible for these problems,” said John.

“When they started building they were meant to notify us, but that never happened.

“We’ve had diggers and lorries everywhere and there are huge piles of earth all over the place.

“Our customers have been telling us they thought we were shut and we’ve lost a lot of business over the past six weeks. We are down by around 50%.

“We’re a small business as it is and this has really hurt us.”

He added, “We’ve now been told the banner they promised us will not be ready for a few weeks, and they still have not provided us with the other temporary signs they said they would.

“It’s just not good enough.”

A spokesman for the council attributed the delay in providing signage to Kender Cars to the holiday period — and assured the Tele that a banner had now been delivered.

Councillor Shimi said she had noted Mr Cole’s concerns and was doing everything to address them.

“As soon as I heard Mr Cole had a problem with the work, I went out to visit him.

“Certainly there were difficulties with making sure people knew he was still open and that’s why we made getting signage for him a priority.

“Regarding his temporary parking, that is also being progressed as quickly as possible, but these things must be done properly to ensure they are both safe legal.”

Councillor Shimi added, “It is important that as a council we do as much as possible to support small businesses and we shall continue to work with Kender Cars to try and solve any problems.”