FOR those of us old enough to remember the former Salisbury City Council and, after re-organisation in the 1970s, the birth of Salisbury District Council, will recall that it was a widely-held belief that the “county council” in Trowbridge had little affection for Salisbury.

Divided by Salisbury Plain, the south never managed to acquire the status held by Trowbridge, Devizes and Melksham.

Reading Salisbury City Council’s Mark Timbrell’s comments in last week’s Journal, little seems to have changed.

He expresses disappointment that the city council had not been consulted on proposed new charges for Salisbury’s car parks.

Trowbridge has long held the mistaken view that Salisbury is rich and should therefore help support the rest of the county. With the city car parks making over £1m profit, while others in the county run at a loss, it is obvious that Trowbridge sees Salisbury, with its tourism attractions, as the goose laying the golden egg.

Salisbury makes over 50 per cent of car park revenue in the county.

County hall is not going to ask Salisbury for its observations – they know what they would be.

Cllr Timbrell is correct when he says the “experiment of unitary authority is failing”. Salisbury District Council may have had its faults, but its officers and councillors had Salisbury and its surrounding villages very much at heart. Many of us warned at the time that a unitary authority for Wiltshire would be a disaster for Salisbury and we have been proved correct.

Changes do not always work as former Salisbury police chief, Frank Lockyer, points out – again in last week’s Postbag.

Many people question the appointment of Police Commissioners because, as with so many organisations now, there seem to be more bosses and managers, but fewer workers.

Mr Lockyer points out that the Wiltshire police commissioner’s office has a budget equivalent to 50 extra constables.

There is a need for more police officers but there is a problem – having got rid of Salisbury police station, where would they go?

Roland Batten

Porton

JOHN Glen's suggestion that Wiltshire Council abandon Salisbury’s ‘loss-making park and ride’ schemes is typical of the Conservative attitude to public services: if they are unprofitable they should be abolished, irrespective of their non-monetary benefits, which are considerable.

If park-and-ride were abolished as many as 1,000 extra drivers may seek to bring their vehicles into Salisbury, exacerbating the problems of the city’s already congested, sometimes gridlocked, roads and streets.

Alternatively many of them – shoppers, tourists, even workers – may decide to give Salisbury a miss, given the pressure on, and price of, parking places in the city once they have encountered the traffic jams.

Neither alternative is desirable. The subsidised park-and-ride schemes are a sensible part-solution to the city’s traffic problems and should be supported not condemned by somebody who has put forward no viable alternative.

Ron Johnston

Salisbury

I DON’T believe it!

Wiltshire Council are proposing that Church Street car park in Amesbury should be shut down (Journal, November 27).

They state that it is only 30 per cent utilised and there is on-street parking available, adding they could use the site for “other purposes”.

Wiltshire Council, please reflect on decisions you made since you introduced the exorbitant charges for parking in the town. Remembering Amesbury centre (excluding charity shops, hair salons, funeral directors and estate agents) contains less than 12 shops – not really a destination people will spend ages browsing the retail options – visitors to the town and businesses there should be nurtured, to create employment and wealth….. Not exposed to shortages and draconian parking enforcement.

The council seem to have suffered institutional amnesia regarding some of their recent decisions, together with a total lack of understanding of the car parks value to the local economy: n A few years ago the council licensed The Wyndham Hall in Church Street to take upwards of 100 people, for weddings, bar mitzvahs and other massed celebrations – with no parking provided at all; one has to ask what went on to get that one through the various approvals?

- The town’s principal hotel, a pub with a nightclub and a local social club, all close by in Church Street only have this as their car park, they have no parking of their own.

- Salisbury Street was given wide pavements and reduced parking some years ago, together with a taxi rank that takes up a ridiculous amount of potential parking space – and in case we have forgotten, the busses now park on the streets.

Often cars park right down Church Street onto the Queensbury Bridge, even the white vans have to slow down to get through – (again it seems amazing that our police and fire chiefs were content at the council’s decision to allow parking that effectively prevents a fire engine getting to the Woodford Valley from Amesbury).

Wiltshire Council, please take the time to visit Marlborough on a Sunday (there is free and plentiful parking). It is a positive hive of activity. This same phenomenon can be seen at towns around the country wherever parking is affordable or free (first two hours) there is a vibrant community of independent shops and businesses.

Wiltshire Council, don’t you get it? Until you make visiting our town centres easy and affordable, or free; you will continue to throttle growth in the communities you are charged with enabling, be that Amesbury, Salisbury or other towns under your care.

Adam Woods

Amesbury