Perth planning park-and-ride for traffic coming from east

Plans for a new park-and-ride aimed at commuters from Dundee have been unveiled.

People heading from the city into Perth are forced to endure lengthy queues as they hit rush-hour traffic on the way to work.

In a bid to cut congestion on the A85 and reduce travel time, Perth and Kinross Council has launched a bid to create a new service.

The local authority is in the final stages of negotiations with whisky producer the Edrington Group to secure land for a park-and-ride site.

This would be created at Walnut Grove, to the east of Perth, at an initial cost of around £1.5 million, and would significantly reduce the number of cars entering the city from Dundee each day.

Council chiefs hope the new park-and-ride would be used by commuters entering Perth from the east, alleviating pressure on the busy Dundee road, as well as going some way to tackling problems with air pollution.

It may also prove a boon to major Perth businesses, such as Aviva, which the local authority’s head of planning, David Littlejohn, said was struggling for parking space at its Pitheavlis headquarters on the other side of the city.