AS I write, Salisbury’s inaugural Celebrate Voice Festival is underway.

I was pleased to be able to be at the launch party to welcome another superb new enterprise and a welcome addition to the city’s already vibrant cultural life.

Over the weekend, it was a pleasure to take part in the talk panel at The Guildhall.

The young people who organised it deserve all credit for putting together a very worthwhile and well attended event.

I also took the opportunity to have another word in the ear of Wiltshire Council’s leader about Salisbury’s specific needs within Wiltshire – not least the ongoing county wide review of parking charges.

Now is the time for the many people with strong views to submit them to the consultation process so that they can be taken into consideration by those charged with the task of designing a new parking regime.

Salisbury has a complicated history in this regard, the waters muddied by a park and ride system which has never fully delivered.

It has long seemed as through people living on the fringes of the city are caught between a rock and a hard place – denied the benefits of residents’ parking but finding it perverse to drive further out of the city in order to access cheap parking.

Salisbury has been treated as a special case within Wiltshire based on its population and range of facilities – although that distinction will be difficult to maintain when faster train links accelerate the expansion of Chippenham.

While Salisbury’s reach is greater than other places in Wiltshire, it still has a local population who rely on it for everyday necessities and deserve to be able to do so at a price they do not consider punitive.

The review will be comprehensive – addressing costs but also technology and looking at each location on its own merits.

I would urge all those who have campaigned against Salisbury’s parking charges to recognise that this is the moment they have been waiting for and to turn their minds to contributing to the comprehensive review and becoming part of the solution.