The council has pledged to take action to tackle weeds growing across Perth amid calls to return the city to its former glory.
Visitors pulling into South Inch Car Park might not get the best first impression when met with knee-high weeds and dried up flower beds.
One local councillor said the number of city centre roofs and walls with plants growing out of them was “appalling”.
Perth City Centre Conservative councillor Chris Ahern is calling for the whole of the city centre to be smartened up.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I have asked for the whole city centre to be looked at including a lot of the vennels.
"I have asked that weed killer is used and then a follow-up to remove these weeds. St Catherine’s Road at the retail park is particularly bad."
Speygate Car Park and South Inch Car Park are also looking neglected.
Cllr Ahern said North Muirton was "another area that is particularly bad" and said a council team had subsequently been weed killing there this week.
The Conservative councillor believes a community effort is needed to tidy up Perth City Centre.
He said: "I would like to see a huge effort in making Perth beautiful again, and some effort is going to need to be taken by private individuals. When you look along streets such as South Street or even look out of my office on the fourth floor of 2 High street, the number of roofs and sides of properties that have trees and plants growing out of them is appalling. The council does not have the authority to do any work on them as they are private and I would imagine when the plants are removed there is going to be extra work required to fill in the holes left behind to prevent water causing damage to the building."
Perth City Centre SNP councillor Andrew Parrott believes staffing issues - exacerbated by COVID and Brexit - are to blame.
He said: "I am concerned to ensure Perth - and the rest of Perth and Kinross - stays looking as nice as possible and we will be doing all we can to that end. In the short term the main issue is staffing problems post COVID and in a very challenging employment market where we have very low unemployment rates at the same time as very high job vacancy rates exacerbated by the impact of Brexit which makes recruitment from the EU impossible for many roles."
A Perth and Kinross Council spokesperson told the Perthshire Advertiser staff shortages and council cutbacks had resulted in grounds maintenance not being done as regularly as before.
The council spokesperson said: "As part of our responsibility as a local authority to deliver a balanced budget, Perth and Kinross Council services have been set a four per cent slippage target. This reflects the continued financial challenges faced by all Scottish councils and the requirement to prioritise spending effectively.
"In relation to grounds maintenance, the slippage target, together with some recruitment issues, is impacting on our schedules for routine works such as grass cutting. As a result, these works may not happen as regularly as before. However, it should also be noted that our planned street weed killing programme is currently underway."
