Whatever became of joined-up thinking?

Everyone in Salisbury who drives a car knows that all-day parking within walking distance of the city centre isn’t easy. Everyone, that is, except Salisbury Vision.

Can somebody – preferably someone standing for re-election to Wiltshire Council next month – explain the logic behind the planned elimination of long-term spaces in the central car park? Do they imagine that people who leave town for the day somehow aren’t important and don’t need to be catered for? Do they suppose that car users only come in from outside the city and therefore will use the park & ride facilities instead? Or is there some kind of alternative arrangement that they haven’t yet deigned to share with us?

Whatever happened to joined-up thinking? Why didn’t those who decided that the long-term section of the central car park would be an excellent site for new housing bother to find out who actually uses it now, and why?

This kind of senseless back-of-an-envelope planning would have been laughed out of existence in the days when we still had a proper district council. But we don't, and we're paying the price.

• So we're to get a big new £40m college for 12 to 20-year-olds. It's due to open in September next years and has to be within easy reach of the station, so the planners will have to move pretty quickly. Anyone got any thoughts about where it should go? There’s been talk about Churchfields, but surely the most obvious place would be the Old Manor site (Fountains Way) where six acres are being offered for sale? That could make quite a nice little campus.

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