Perth should impose planning restrictions

Sir, - Mr Roche of Perth wrote a very reasonable letter about the poor look of Perth during the day, while considerable monies are spent on lighting it up at night (October 28) and poor facades in the city centre is one of his expressed concerns.

Perth lauds its heritage and culture and the city centre is a conservation area but, despite this, shop fronts in lurid colour schemes and cheap signage abound.

Obviously, and disappointingly, this is not an issue for Perth and Kinross Council.

The planning service has a conservation section and a conservation officer but with no overall vision for gracing shop facades with a palette of complementary heritage colours and quality signage.

Each planning application is considered on its own merits, resulting in jarring and disharmonious effects inappropriate to a conservation area and allowing cheap and nasty frontages to sit cheek by jowl with shops which do invest in quality appearance.

If the council did have a policy of applying quality colour and signage frontages when processing planning applications, Perth city centre would be transformed and Perth would be well on its way to being a daylight city of culture.

Joan McEwen. King James Hospital Building, Hospital Street. Perth.

Picture: Steve MacDougall. Pedestrians make their way down a rain-swept Perth High Street.