First Fifteen Free - Parking In Perth City

What do we want? EASIER PARKING!

When do we want it? NOW!

Oh… Alright, go on then!

Okay, it may not be that every parking grumble you have is suddenly sorted but there has been a HUGE step forward in nip-in-nip-out parking for Perth City Centre users. Since the middle of January you should have noticed that parking up in council owned carparks has been made easier by flat-rated parking charges.

Kicking off the good news is a ‘First Fifteen Free’ rule which allows you to park your car, nip in to pick up your dry cleaning, get something for that nights tea, return your library books, drop the kids off to a dance class and buy a bottle of wine (the last two go hand in hand, no?).  No more scanning up and down the street looking for the green-banded hats as you pull on your trainers and prepare to break the speed limit in order to collect one jar of lemon curd to joosh up your weekend pavlova!

This is such a fantastic idea; how often do you wish you could just pop in to post a parcel at Pharos? Or collect your impulse buy from Eva Lucia’s Facebook page shopping spree the night before?  This 'First Fifteen Free' rule will allow you to use the city centre in a completely new way and I really hope that it helps us make those quick little purchases from local Indies and our own High Street instead of being forced out of town to supermarkets and retail parks. 

Now, pay attention because this is important: you still have to display a ticket to show when you arrived but you don't need to pay anything unless you want to stay for longer than fifteen minutes.  All the machines are now geared up to give you your free ticket when you press the green button.  No catch apparently!

That’s the super easy and super brilliant bit out of the way.  There are also changes to the way we use short and long stay car parks and although it’s incredibly dull it does make things easier so you will want to know this for sure!

We’ve broken it down for you here:

City Centre Parking is now split into three zones.

• Zone 1. The most central zone allowing parking for up to 1 hour for £1. Zone 1 will cover the Council’s on-street parking provision between Mill Street, South Methven Street, Canal Street and Tay Street.

• Zone 2. A maximum of 4 hours at a flat-rate of £1 an hour. Zone 2 will cover Scott Street Car Park and the Speygate Car Park.  On-street it covers the outlying areas in Marshall Place, Caledonian Road, Barrossa Place and the Back Wynd Car Park in Bridgend.
   
• Zone 3. Long-stay parking up to 6 hours at a flat-rate of 50p an hour or up to 10 hours at a flat rate of 40p an hour.  The maximum charge here will be £4. Zone 3 covers the South Inch Car Park, Shore Road, Edinburgh Road, St Leonards Bank and the On-street parking on the east bank of the Tay along with the Norie Miller Walk Car Park.

Of course, there’s always an exception to a rule and Canal Street multi-storey car park, located in zone 1, caters for long-stay parking at £1 per hour up to a maximum of 8 hours for £8.

All of these charges will be in place between 8.00 am to 6.00 pm Monday to Saturday meaning you can still shop, eat out and stroll around the city centre on Sunday for FREE! 

Got it? Good. Now for the big ask. This is on trial for one year and if we don’t use it we’ll be back to dodging traffic wardens in a bid to return dodgy online sale purchases.  I know the independent retailers of the city centre have fought long and hard for this and although there may still be some way to go before city centre parking is the perfectly effortless system that we dream of, it is a great result for all of us.  

Please use it – pay for four hours right in the heart of the city and have an extra coffe, a little dessert and an extra browse round the Indie shops.

Please pop in quickly for free and pick up a beautiful birthday card, post a parcel to a friend, pick up a takeaway coffee, treat yourself to lovely flowers, impulsively buy a little click-and-collect from your local shop, visit Marian and try on a new jacket, buy steak pie from a real butcher or a bottle of artisan gin from a proper booze shop.

We’d love to hear what you get up to in your ‘First Fifteen Free’. Only today I nipped into Copperfields and got my fringe trimmed which cost me a grand total of ZERO. For the first time ever my free-in-between-appointments-five-minute-trim really was for nothing. Bonus!  

VERY IMPORTANT: 

The new zones and charges apply only to on-street parking and car parks owned by Perth & Kinross Council. We officially still boo Smart Parking like the Pantomime Baddies that they are.  

Parking at Broxden and Scone Park & Ride sites will not be affected by the changes and will still provide a wee bus run to the City Centre with free parking.  Which gives you plenty of time to read a story or two on your favourite local online magazine!