MY husband received yet another parking fine yesterday.

We live in Albany Road, where parking is at a premium and there are more cars than spaces.

My husband is an international business manager so goes abroad a lot. He often returns at 11pm or 4am, like this week.

There is no option but to park on a yellow line, there are no spaces in any roads locally at all.

In the morning he got up and went to move his car but already had a ticket at 9.16am.

We average a ticket every month at least. £35 a time.

We are hard-working people trying to live. I had a ticket last month when I was too ill to move my car and although I contested this ( I couldn't see!) it was disallowed and I still had to pay.

Who made this moronic decision? This is beyond a joke. We have paid £100s this year in fines that we can’t avoid.

There should be a complete amnesty in our roads close to the town centre, especially as on Tuesdays and Saturdays people park here for free. Just trying to do the shopping is difficult enough but to add insult to injury and fine local residents constantly when all they are trying to do is live in their street has got to an unacceptable level (try doing it with toddlers.) Please don't reply with “he should have got up and moved his car” or “if you don't like living there, move,” because that does not allow for people being human.We have paid so much this year and to have to budget £70 a month for fines, it is not acceptable.

The council is creating a bitter society full of resentment.

Theresa Wood

Salisbury

ENOUGH is enough. Wiltshire Council must not be allowed to put the parking up to £9.

Next year should be a fantastic year for the city.

With hundreds of people coming to see the Magna Carta, it should be a great year for the city and the cathedral. But if the charge does go up to £9, coach companies will have to put their prices up to cover the cost, so people won’t come and everyone will lose out.We are not a rich city. If we were, the Trussell Trust would be out of business.

Sylvie Biggs Salisbury n I WOULD like to respond to the letters in the Journal from our MP and the Labour Party Parliamentary Candidate on the subject of Salisbury car parking. John Glen wants to close the park and ride sites. The consequences will be: 1. Car parks full of cars parked by workers all day, leaving few or no spaces for shoppers with a negative impact on city centre shops and businesses.

When the Central car park is developed there will be many fewer spaces available.

2. Increased congestion and worsening air quality – already parts of Salisbury exceed Government guidelines.

The strategy should be to encourage more people to use park and ride and to reduce the number of short car trips within Salisbury by promoting walking, cycling - additional cycle ways and using local buses. Could John Glen tell us his transport policy for Salisbury or is it solely to abandon park and ride?

With regards to Tom Corbin's rambling letter I would have more respect for his position if he was campaigning equally for the poorer sections of our community who do not own a car by calling for lower bus fares.

I find it strange that being employed as a train driver he is not calling for improved and affordable public transport.

That is the Green Party policy.

Not all city councillors are signed up to his narrow vision.

Wiltshire Council needs to produce a sustainable transport policy for Salisbury which includes the right of city centre residents and visitors to enjoy a clean environment.

Cllr Michael Pope

Salisbury Green Party 

I WAS surprised to read your article on November 13 regarding the current parking consultation that Wiltshire Council is undertaking.

Given your headline and the content and tone of the article, your readers could be forgiven for thinking that the council has already made its mind up about any changes which would be introduced. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Please allow me to clarify our position.

We are consulting on a range of options as part of our review of parking across Wiltshire and we want the views of people in Salisbury and across the county.

We have provided a series of options based on individual car parks and town assessments, which are available for people to read and comment on. These options use factors such as usage of car parks and their location, as well as looking at the wider economic and environmental issues.

This approach gives the council greater ability to manage car parking demand and supply.

We have also suggested a number of other options that residents may wish to consider such as first hour free parking, free after 4pm and Sunday charges. These are all options and we would welcome people’s suggestions and comments and we will consider them all.

We have not made any decisions, but have included various possibilities for example cashless – which can save the cost of the machines and collecting money and we are very happy to discuss this all with businesses and town and parish councils Your article claims there has been a “vastly reduced” footfall of customers into Salisbury.

I am not sure where your figures come from but there has been an annual increase in footfall of 0.3 per cent across the south west. Our consultation aims to protect towns and regenerate local economies.

We have asked questions throughout the survey where people can agree, disagree or put forward their own option and residents can also make their views known through the town, parish or unitary members or the chamber of commerce, who will be discussing their views with myself and colleagues.

We want residents of Salisbury to have their say, and I hope as many people as possible do so.

Your views matter. See consult.wiltshire.gov.uk/portal.

John Thomson

Deputy Leader Wiltshire Council

  I note in our postbag correspondence that Salisbury’s MP, John Glen is continually side-stepping the points that I have raised.

Most recently his tactic has been that I have been shouting, I presume by that he means I have been shouting that Wiltshire Council parking strategy does not work while he has been quietly accepting that there can be no better option than to charge over the odds to make Salisbury feel like an overpriced City that only occasional visitors and the privileged can afford to enter.

John Glen has moved his attack away from rural bus services to attacking the loss-making park and ride service. He is of course quite right – the park and ride is a loss-making service and it would be folly to view it as anything other. That is after all part of the Park & Ride remit.

What John Glen would understand if he had lived in Salisbury over the last few years is that the park and ride was intended to be part of a balanced parking strategy that has long since gone awry.

If he would like to work with me on car parking changes he might also like to be made aware that as things stand Salisbury’s Salt Lane and Brown Street car parks are earmarked for future development the latter also proposed for Coach parking to coincide with the extra demand for next year’s Magna Carta celebrations. Further to Salisbury’s long-term parking woes we are set to lose all long stay car parking in the Central car park, replaced by half the number of short stay only car parking as part of Stanhope’s Maltings development which will also encompass the Millstream coach park.

Salisbury’s insulting 10p proposed drop in short stay charge for an hour to £1.30 pales compared to Amesbury’s 30p. However for Amesbury, just like Salisbury the parking charges have forced people into out of town shops with parking for free. For Amesbury’s town centre to stay viable the right choice would be to accept the mistake in trying to milk the car parks by ending parking charges altogether. There are a great many residents whose roads become free car parks who would see the benefit of this overnight.

For Salisbury this principle would not work while there is insufficient parking in the centre and outstanding traffic management and pollution issues – but to be bold there is an alternative and much more appropriate way forward. The simple act of free areas to park just outside of the ring road periphery on the main approaches into Salisbury would allow people who are able to, to walk into town and improve some of the City’s green credentials. This could work well with Park & Ride sites still operating don’t you think John Glen?

To be even more bold, old ideas of further restrictions on traffic flows through Salisbury could be revisited, maybe re-examination of the Churchfields link road. Of course many of these issues would not still exist if Salisbury’s bypass had come into being. Now there is something radical and still just about achievable, albeit a little unrealistic given nobody is talking about it. Bolder still with my railway head on Wilton and London Road park and ride sites could be linked in with the railway which would work well with the proposed Stanhope development. I will happily work with our Conservative MP once he accepts that Conservative led Wiltshire Council’s parking strategy and approach to the City is flawed. In the mean time I’ll lead the way, to improve things for Salisbury constituency.

Tom Corbin

Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Salisbury Constituency