An Earth Day study that names Perth as the least environmentally-friendly city in Britain has been slated.
The Solar Centre, specialists in eco-lighting products, said it pored over pages of government data and research to score UK cities on everything from waste management to air pollution, carbon emissions and electric car charging stations.
While naming Durham as the best performing with a total average score of 7.7, it placed Perth at the bottom of all 59 cities with just 3.91 points.
According to the company, Perth had fallen behind Newport, Bradford and Southampton since the last time the data was analysed, to take the unwanted worst place accolade.
But the results have been criticised by locals, who say they can’t understand why Perth – home to two large inches in the city centre – received such a low score for green spaces.
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said: “I find the details on Perth which are provided in the survey to be extraordinary, given all the green space in Perth.
“In addition, Perth and Kinross Council have take a lot of action on a number of green issues, including promoting cycling and active travel. They are committed to the Dunkeld Road walking and cycling corridor, plus the council has a very good record on recyling.
“It looks like they’ve got their facts wrong.”
Liz Smith, also Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife added: “The more I look at this survey the more it becomes unfathomable.
“It seems to me that there are too many parts of the data issued in the survey which don’t add up.”
SNP MP Pete Wishart said he was disappointed to see Perth at the bottom of the table.
“I have to say that whilst I see a number of areas we can improve on, and the principal of these is air quality, I have to take issue with the perceived quality of our green spaces.
“Perth has much better developed and maintained green spaces and wooded areas that a number of the cities that ranked above it, so that is very disheartening to read.”
Mr Wishart added: “The study acknowledges that we perform highly in terms of our rate of recycling and have fewer instances of littering per head of population but we must always continue to improve the cities green credentials.”
A Solar Centre spokesman defended the study. “Basically, we collected the data from various source, mostly government data, and then used a formula to get a score between 0 and 10 for each city,” he said.
“Once each city had a score for each category, they were given a total average using those scores.”
Dundee is placed at number 25, with a total score of 6.01.
