LETTERS
From P. Kennerley, Shanklin:
I read with astonishment your article (CP, 27-01-17) about the council spending £30,000 on a parking plan which stated the obvious in 13 pages.
We have the absurd situation in which many of the car parks are almost empty due to the charges. Drivers park in residential areas where parking is free and residents then have to pay for a parking permit so they can park near their house.
I suspect if the full cost of the parking regime is included (administration of parking fines and parking permits, traffic wardens, line painting, capital cost and maintenance of parking meters and signs, labour and pension costs, collecting money and cost of unnecessary reports, etc.) the council is making very little profit from car parking.
Free of charge, I offer the council on alternative parking plan:
1 As tourism is our leading industry and the cost of the ferries deters visitors, we should promote the Island as a free parking county.
2 Removal all on and off-street meters and sell them to less enlightened councils.
3 Remove all parking restriction signs and stop painting parking bays on the road.
4 Find the staff involved with parking a more useful job or make them redundant.
5 Have a fresh look at the ever- expanding amount of single and double yellow lines on our roads. I suspect many of these have been installed to justify the jobs of those in the highways department whose jobs depend on these and other schemes.
6 Stop selling residents parking permits. If the above measures were implemented there would be more parking spaces on the streets because more drivers would use the car parks.
This is probably too radical for the council but it would make both resident and visiting motorists much happier.
They would be more likely to visit our town centres and spend money.
I recently visited Ely in Cambridgeshire.
On their huge central car park is a sign saying 'Parking here is free — please come back soon’.