Letter: Possible loophole over parking fees?

Letter: I was shocked and appalled to learn the council had decided to charge for all car parks in Market Drayton, even those which have been free after the revamp of town centre ones.

Having read the terms and conditions posted on the notices there seems to be a giant loophole.

If you have bought a ticket then, according to the notice, you mustn't "purchase" another ticket to extend your stay.

Therefore since you can get a one-hour ticket free without purchasing it, you can, in theory, take one of these every hour.

Or you could extend for free a two-hour stay (after paying 10p) ad infinitum, as you cannot be said to purchase something if it's being given away for free.

The free period should be three hours at least if these are 'long stay' car parks and a more reasonable charge of less than 40p/hr should be levied for the rest of the period, but certainly no more than £1.20 which is in the short stay car park.

There should be a campaign to stop councils introducing this as a way of getting money for nothing.

Is the aim of councils to kill off small town centres like Market Drayton, Newport, Whitchurch etc so they can sell them off to large development companies cheap and then give planning permission for monstrous shopping centres which we'll all have to pay through the nose to visit and risk being clamped if we're a minute late on the ticket?

I don't visit Telford unless I can avoid parking charges as it costs too much in petrol. Even Market Drayton costs at least a litre of petrol at £1.33 locally.

Mr Wilson

Market Drayton