STEVE FINAN: Dundee can’t support three indoor shopping centres – so let’s combine two.

“I openly concede that it may not work. But it’s worth contemplating.

“It’s worth discussing.” It is evident that Dundee’s city centre cannot support three indoor shopping centres. The Overgate is healthy, but the Wellgate and Keiller centres are not.

If not three, could the town support two shopping centres? Just uttering the words is simple: relocate all remaining shops from the Wellgate, which appears to be redeveloped into a Dundee and Angus College campus, to the Keiller Centre.

Instead of investing £3 million on plant pots in Murraygate, build an 80-yard covered walkway from the Overgate entrance outside Boots to the New Inn Entry on High Street, which leads to the Keiller Centre. Yes.

I understand. Before such a convergence of shopping malls could be accomplished, a massive cliff of problems would have to be conquered. The facilities and businesses are privately owned.

It’s a lot more complicated than a company walking out of one location and setting up in another. Some of the units at the Keiller Centre are not shops.

There may not even be enough ventures in the Wellgate and Keiller centres to make this proposal feasible.

‘Idea should come from Dundee City Council’

Yes, I admit that it may not work. But it’s worth considering. It’s worth debating. And surely it is worth battling rather than admitting defeat?

This is not the way a loudmouth newspaper columnist should think. It should come from the council. But it never seems to happen. Dundee lacks leadership.

The city needs a champion. Someone with motivation, ideas, and the fortitude to not accept the first “no” as an answer.

Someone with the cunning to persuade strong people and the strength to get a sluggish and unimaginative council machine to work.

Someone who will get up and accomplish things rather than lie back and let things happen to them. Someone who can get others to talk to one another.

Who can close deals. Someone who will rage, as Dylan Thomas put it, against the dying of the light.

‘Do you see anyone who could sell the vision?’

The position of Lord Provost should be more than just a piece of council furniture where the incumbent mutters platitudes and smiles for photos.

And the council’s leader should lead clearly and energetically, rather than acting like the invisible man.

The administration’s chief executive should be a dynamo with an internal fire that burns with ambition for the city, not someone who must be winkled out by Freedom of Information (FOI) demands before he can say anything.

When you look at our low-level, rank-and-file councillors and police, do you see anyone who meets the description of a “fighter” for their community?

Do you see anyone who could approach retail centre owners, businesses, planning officials, and investors and pitch them a vision?

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