Perth Shoppers Start Planning Exactly What They’d Do With Two Hours of Free Parking, Just in Case
Businesses have written to the First Minister asking for two free hours in the city centre. Shoppers already have spreadsheets.
A Perth city centre car park, where two hours could change everything. Photo: Steven Brown, “Car park at Tesco, Friarton, Perth - geograph.org.uk - 7793267”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
About 30 Perth city centre businesses have written to the First Minister with a list of urgent demands, including more police on the High Street, tougher powers over empty shops and two hours of free parking.
Shoppers have taken the parking request very seriously. “Two hours,” said a woman from Tulloch, who has already planned her afternoon. “Forty minutes in the shops, twenty minutes for a scone, thirty minutes bumping into someone I went to school with, and half an hour getting back to the car because I bumped into someone else.”
Others worry about the pressure. “At the moment I’ve got 58 minutes and I run,” said a Scone man. “Two hours, I’ll have to browse. I’m not trained for browsing.”
Traders say longer stays mean more spending. A city centre café owner said: “A one-hour shopper buys a coffee. A two-hour shopper buys a coffee, a traybake and a card for someone’s retirement they didn’t know about.”
The Scottish Government said it would consider the issues carefully. Perth’s car park ticket machines declined to comment, but were heard to make a quiet, sad beep.
The real story: Perth businesses' demands (The Courier)
Letters to the Editor
The views expressed are those of the reader, and frankly that's on them.
-
Two hours? I’d need three. One for the shops, two for the people I’d bump into.
— Graham B., Tulloch, 31 October 2026 -
I just want to buy a lamp without sprinting back to the car. Is that too much to ask?
— Sheena M., Muirton, 31 October 2026
Write to the Editor