Councillors fear contentious plans to build 91 new homes on the grounds of the former Kinross High School could cause parking chaos in the town.
Persimmon Homes won consent for 91 properties at the old secondary school last month despite objections from locals.
Since 2010 the school grounds have been used as ad hoc car parks, such as the blaes pitch off Station Road for users of Kinross Parish Church, but these will now disappear.
A proposal by councillor Dave Cuthbert to delay the application to allow for a Kinross parking survey was thrown out when the plans were voted through.
Seventeen car parking spaces are proposed to be created at the southern end of the school site that can be accessed via Station Road. These spaces are being provided for the users of Kinross Parish Church.
Resident Douglas Rodger said: “We have been carrying out a survey of the parking within the school playing fields over a period of time and there is anywhere between 30-40 cars parked in this area on a Sunday. During the week on average there could be about 20 cars in the parking area.
“This greatly increases when a wedding or funeral service is being held in the church. The 17 spaces shown will be totally inadequate and we suspect that these spaces will probably be used by householders who have more cars than they have allocated parking spaces, or be used by visitors.”
Persimmon Homes plans were also opposed by the town’s civic trust who said the proposal was “significantly greater” than the council’s adopted development plan which had earmarked the site for just 70 houses.
Councillor Dave Cuthbert said: “The motion I put forward for this application to be deferred pending the production of an up to date parking survey for Kinross and for a comment to be submitted by the council’s conservation officers was only supported by Councillor Willie Robertson, so did not carry.
“I see this as unfortunate, as, in my view and councillor Robertson’s, there will be a problem with parking in Kinross following the loss of the existing off street parking.”
Perth and Kinross Council development quality manager Nick Brian said that prior to the school closing in 2010, it was not possible for the public to use the school grounds or the blaes pitch for car parking.
He said: “Previous parking surveys carried out by the council examined the capacity of all car parks in Kinross and showed that the vast majority of the car parks never reached their capacity. It is considered that parking problems in Kinross are more of a perceived issue.”
