In line with Scottish Planning Policy, Aberdeen Football Club (AFC) have provided spaces for 1,350 cars at the proposed Kingsford stadium site. We have looked at some of the statements regarding the allocation of these spaces, and similar to the shuttle bus strategy, we question whether or not these proposals are realistic.
- The strategy shows 3,915 people parking in the 1,350 spaces. This is a 2.9 person average per car. There is no information in the strategy to detail how this will be monitored. Will people with less than 3 people in their car be turned away? In a survey carried out on behalf of the club 42% of people said they travelled to Pittodrie with 1-2 people in their car. Interestingly that same survey failed to ask the question “How do you intend to travel to Kingsford ?” Wonder why not ?
- 1,100 car spaces will be available to home supporters with parking permits purchased in advance. No cars will be allowed in the stadium without a permit.
- 250 of the 1,350 spaces have been allocated for 1,000 hospitality guests.
- No spaces have been allocated for the manager, players, players families, directors, board members or stadium staff. There were 680 parking spaces allowed for these groups in the Loirston application – how could this have been accepted by ACC? Perhaps the players and the manager will be on the early shuttle buses?
- Traffic signals will operate at 120 second intervals with around 35 seconds for departures in each interval (so 35 cars leave every two minutes).
- This will require 23 intervals of lights from the exit onto the A944
- 35 cars will be able to exit at each interval – one per second.
- It will be 46 minutes before the last car will be able to leave.
- There are 2,700 Old Firm fans arriving by 60 official supporters bus who will be able to park at the stadium. As detailed in the supporting statements, 3,000 tickets are to be allocated to Old-Firm away fans, meaning 300 will arrive by other means from off-site.
- The plan states that Police Scotland have said they are able to release 60 supporters coaches in 2 minutes from Pittodrie. We know they do this by closing the road. Assuming the same timing is used for release of buses from Kingsford, then that’s a rate of one bus every 2 seconds exiting the stadium. Jings.
- Using the 2.9 per vehicle ratio, the plan states that depending on the type of match, 600-800 cars will be parking off site. AFC have presented no evidence where the 600-800 spaces for parking in Arnhall are. But we know from Freedom of Information requests obtained from Aberdeenshire Council that these parking spaces have not been secured and that the club is considering other options not presented in the planning application.
- A controlled parking zone (CPZ) is proposed for a small area of Westhill. This does not represent a 30 minute walking distance from the stadium. In fact, a 30 minute walking distance is almost twice the distance shown in these plans. However the Aberdeen Planners have imposed a planning condition that the CPZ must cover a 30 minute walking distance to the stadium.

- 2,320 home supporters in 800 cars will be required to park out with the CPZ which covers a 30 minute walking radius to the stadium.
- 433 people in addition to the 2,320 above are expected to walk from Westhill.
- 300 away supporters not travelling by official coach will also be arriving at the stadium.
4 thoughts on “Kingsford Car Parking – do the numbers really add up?”
It’s all smoke and mirrors it can’t work. Got to ask the question who took a back hander from Mr Milne/AFC to get this through?
You have to wonder why Aberdeen City Council’s planners did not make this analysis. Are they numerically illiterate, or was it politically inconvenient to do some simple number crunching to confront certain senior officers and Councillors with the reality of what was being proposed by AFC?
It’s obvious that no traffic studies were carried out by the council. Thanks to the AWPR there is now heavy traffic in both directions from the Westhill roundabout into Aberdeen every day of the week. How is this supposed to work with all the football traffic?
If supporters park on verges (damaging grass etc will they be fined?
If they block driveways will they be fined?
If they go down the road of putting in No Parking how do visitors to residents get to park? Residents issued with Parking Available Tickets to put into visitors cars?
These questions and others similar have been asked since this whole shambles began and have not heard anything except the planned rubbish u describe earlier on buses etc.
Surely U should be demanding answers by now before it all becomes faitacompli as they should have not been allowed to do the work already nearly completed!!!