Decision fuelled by climate
Councillors defend their free festive parking stance
Councillors who voted against free festive parking have strongly defended their stance.
At a meeting of Perth and Kinross Council’s environment and infrastructure committee on October 27 councillors approved free festive parking by nine votes to six.
SNP and Labour councillors opposed the move arguing it went against PKC’s commitment to tackle climate change and a lack of evidence it boosted business.
Following last week’s decision there will be free parking each weekend in December from Saturday, December 4 until Saturday December 25, 2021 in all PKC-operated car parks across Perth and Kinross.
Council officers estimated it would result in a loss of £15,000 in income but help local businesses.
At the meeting SNP councillor Grant Laing called for a “more sustainable” initiative.
Councillors were told PKC had been in discussion with Stagecoach East Scotland but it was not possible to offer a free bus travel initiative this year - as happened previously in December 2019. An officer said this was because of both the impact of the pandemic on Stagecoach’s finances and government grant conditions.
PKC’s strategy and policy manager Peter Marshall said there was a challenge with fewer people coming into town for work and people fearing using public transport because of COVID.
The SNP put forward an amendment not to offer free festive parking and to explore ways to incentivise public transport use during the festive period in future years.
Labour councillor Alasdair Bailey withdrew his amendment - not to offer free parking and to redirect the £15,000 of parking revenue towards improving electric charging infrastructure - to support the SNP amendment.
He told councillors there was “no empirical evidence as to the effectiveness of the policy” and there was a “good risk” the scheme was harming local business rather than helping by encouraging folk to occupy spaces for longer.
The Carse of Gowrie councillor suggested it deepened an inequality “rather than resolving it” and said: “We’re saying that those who can afford private transport can have a wee extra in the run up to Christmas whilst those who don’t will get nowt.”
He further argued it went against PKC’s commitment to tackle climate change.
The SNP amendment was rejected and after the meeting convener Angus Forbes echoed a comment made by Liberal Democrat councillor Willie Robertson of the amendment being “anti-business.”
During the meeting Cllr Robertson called both amendments “insensitive” and said: “If ever there was a bad time to make things even worse for retailers surely it’s now. The SNP are known as an anti-business party and this is just another classic example of that.”
Afterwards Cllr Bailey said: “It is not at all anti-business to suggest the council should ensure things it spends money on are actually helping businesses and not harming them. These comments show wilful ignorance on the part of those who supported the proposal, especially given that in many other areas we impose parking time limits precisely because local businesses tell us that turnover of visitors brings them more cash!”
Cllr Parrott said: “It is now very clear the local Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are fully behind the Climate Change agenda until it actually involves doing anything. They’ll talk the talk but they won’t walk the walk!
“All SNP councillors and the Labour councillor on the committee opposed the provision of free festive parking this year and in future years. We did so for the principled reason that the imperative of taking on the challenges of the climate change emergency does not allow us to continue offering inducements for the use of private cars when much the majority of them still rely on petrol or diesel.”