PH2O Row: Drivers Ask Where to Park While They Swim in the Car Park
Council's £74m pool would be built on Thimblerow, Perth's busiest car park. Campaigners prefer a £50m Glover Street plan. Motorists propose a compromise: a pool with parking bays in the shallow end.
Perth's current leisure pool, which has a car park next to it rather than on top of it. Photo: David Brown, “Car park, Perth Leisure Pool - geograph.org.uk - 5902419”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
The great Perth pool debate took a turn for the practical this week as campaigners gathered outside the council’s offices to protest against plans for the £74m PH2O leisure centre at Thimblerow, which is currently Perth’s busiest car park and, on a Saturday, its most competitive sport.
Campaigners favour a cheaper Glover Street option based on keeping the existing leisure pool site, while the council says its plan is the one that’s been properly costed. Both sides agree the flumes are important. Nobody has yet explained where a family of five with a buggy, three swimming bags and a grandad is supposed to park.
“If the pool goes on the car park, I’ll be parking in the pool,” said one Tulloch motorist. “I’m not being difficult. I’m being logical. I’ll do a width, then I’ll do a three-point turn.”
Engineers consulted by the Perthetic (a man who once tiled a bathroom) suggest a hybrid: a pay-and-display flume, with the deep end reserved for blue badge holders and the wave machine timed to coincide with the 4.30pm rush on the Dunkeld Road.
A planning decision is expected in November. Until then, residents have been asked to keep swimming at the existing pool, keep parking at the existing car park, and, above all, not to try doing both at once.
The real story: Perth leisure centre plans row (The Courier)
Letters to the Editor
The views expressed are those of the reader, and frankly that's on them.
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I’ve circled Thimblerow for twenty minutes on a Saturday. A pool there would at least give me something to look at.
— Gordon T., Tulloch, 30 October 2026 -
Glover Street, Thimblerow, I don’t mind. I just want somewhere I can do my 20 lengths without a toddler doing a bomb on me.
— Ann M., Viewlands, 30 October 2026 -
Parking bays in the shallow end is the most sensible thing I’ve read about this whole saga.
— Raymond K., Hillyland, 30 October 2026 -
Respectfully, the article is too kind to the car park. It’s a terrible car park. Fill it with water.
— Shona D., Burghmuir, 30 October 2026
Write to the Editor