Lesley Riddoch, writer, commentator and broadcasterBack to Dundee Ambassadors

Lesley runs her own independent radio, and podcast company, Feisty Ltd. from an office in Commercial Street Dundee and is also a weekly columnist for The Scotsman. Feisty together with Fresh Film produced The Great Tay Road Bridge Mystery   - a lottery funded film shown in 2007 at Dundee's DCA and distributed to all of the city's schools.

There is no other city in the world quite like Dundee where you can go from a cow to a traffic light in half a mile. The fact that you can go from the real countryside to the centre of the city in such a short space of time across the bridge without taking ages to trawl through suburbia is just brilliant.

I set up Feisty Productions Ltd. in Dundee in 2004. People always seem to wonder what on earth I'm doing here but I think Dundee's a fantastic wee place with great potential. I was born in Wolverhampton, brought up in Belfast, moved to Glasgow when I was 13 then went to Oxford to study and moved on again after that. So, I have been all over the place but my parents are both from Scotland and I consider myself mostly Scottish. I've been work-based in Dundee for quite a few years now and I have to say, I'm enjoying myself phenomenally. 

Being so close to the water is exciting in a funny kind of way. I live on the Fife side of the water and one of the greatest experiences in life has to be cycling across the Tay Bridge to work - I'd highly recommend it to anyone.  It's just amazing and anytime I feel like packing it all in I just get on my bike and go across the bridge. The number of ways you experience water in Dundee is tremendous, it's so arresting and the different directions you see the sun set on the Tay are to die for. That's why I'm really keen that the proposed waterfront project goes somewhere - it's vital that we get back to the water.

No other Scottish city has the current profile that Dundee does. It's currently the animation capital of Britain, which is an outstanding achievement it can continue to build on. I do wonder though if we've got completely caught up in the power of technology and have forgotten basic communication. Dundee needs to add a human face to computer games and bring the digital revolution to classrooms. The opportunity is there for bright people to work together and really demonstrate that Dundee is an intelligent city.

Dundee is a very playful city. It's physically inspiring; the people are so talkative and are the funniest in Scotland. It's slightly lateral and down to earth all mixed together - the boring middle is gone. I find that almost any day funny things happen that ‘can only happen in Dundee' - it's just people being people and it gives me great pleasure.

I think a funicular railway running up the Hilltown in Dundee would be a fantastic tourist attraction and a great investment for the city - even better if it linked to the Law. The views would be unparalleled.

Like any city Dundee has its problems, there is a lot of deprivation which needs to be tackled and there should be no excuse for not dealing with these head on. It should be the perfect wee place - it's the right size and it's a city council.  I believe it has the capacity to heal itself and hope that it realises its potential.

The cultural side of Dundee is fantastic for such a small city. The Rep Theatre is a towering achievement - a real people achievement that Dundonians should be proud of. It always attracts a complete mix of people from all walks of life and that's exactly what theatre should be all about. Michael Marra is also someone that the city should hold in high regard, his lyrics are absolute genius. St Andrew of the Woolen Mill, in my eyes, is another artist only Dundee could produce - fantastic stuff!

Dundee has a wealth of opportunities at its fingertips. It has an unrivalled capacity for harnessing solar, water and wind energy. It has more hours of winter sunshine that any other city and 60% of its housing stock is on a south facing slope in front of the Law, which makes it perfect for generating solar power. People tend to think that you need lots of summer sun for solar energy but this is not the case - winter sun is ideal. Its wind potential is also huge - the two Michelin turbines are great but I would like to see more of this in the city. It's even a natural source for tidal energy with the Tay's tidal estuary flowing into the North Sea. So, I would love to see Dundee realise its potential here and would happily champion it being a completely renewable city.