Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Council rejects MP’s appeal for suspension of parking charges
COUNCIL bosses in Perth have refused to scrap parking charges during lockdown.
The local authority was urged by SNP MP Pete Wishart to follow its Fife and Dundee counterpart and suspend fees to help business and key workers.
But Perth and Kinross Council claimed it would be too costly and timeconsuming to set up for just three weeks.
Charges were suspended to “help key workers who could no longer access public transport to travel to work, and to reduce the need for people to handle cash” on March 23 when the first national lockdown was enforced.
At the time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it would run for three weeks before being reviewed.
Mr Wishart welcomed recent decisions by other councils in Tayside and Fife to halt fees.
“We know money is tight for people at the moment and it is harder for small independent retailers to compete with large supermarkets who provide free car parking,” he said.
“It is not a panacea by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think that going back to providing free city and town centre parking would help businesses in those areas.”
Council environment and infrastructure chief Angus Forbes said the idea had been considered and rejected.
“When the first minister announced a threeweek lockdown, we discussed this and came to the conclusion that the expense and time to change the signage and adjust the meters wasn’t practical for a three-week period,” he said.
“If the first minister changes her mind and we are locked down for longer, then we can look again at the decision.
“I don’t believe it’s appropriate to be encouraging people to be coming to our towns at the moment, while Scotland is being advised to stay at home and most shops are closed,” he said.
Perth and Kinross Council lost an estimated £4.8 million income from parking payments while charges were suspended.
They were reintroduced at the beginning of August, with a 10% increase that was described as “poor timing”.