Copy of a Letter to the Richmond & Twickenham Times

2.40.00pm GMT Mon 24th Mar 2003

Sir,

You ask in your editorial what Richmond's Conservatives think they are achieving with their wasteful and discriminatory parking vouchers.

The answer is that it was a foolish manifesto pledge in last year's local elections.

However, they haven't kept their election promise of half an hour's free parking in several ways.

1. They promised permanent free parking, not just 10 vouchers a year.

2. They promised free parking "at any meter or in any Council car park."

3. They promised free parking to "all Borough residents", not just Council Tax payers.

Perhaps the biggest con is that they promised half hour's free parking to help local shops.

In a South Richmond election leaflet last April the Tory candidates said, "The Conservative unique policy of 30 minutes free parking for Borough residents will make it much easier for local people to stop and shop." The only problem is that you can't use the vouchers at any shopping area in South Richmond ward!

The whole of Richmond town centre is excluded from the scheme as is Arragon Road car park in Twickenham, where the Council's website says use of the vouchers would be "impractical", whatever this means.

It gets worse. Each voucher costs the Council Tax payers 36 pence. At Ham Parade 30 minutes parking costs 30 pence. And if you don't wont to pay this you park before 10 am or after 4.30 pm. In Whitton High Street there aren't any parking restrictions after 9.30 am.

So Whitton residents will be tempted to drive away from Whitton shops so as not to waste their vouchers. Of course when they get to Twickenham or Teddington there may not be a meter to park at, free or not.

The worst aspect of this silly scheme, as you pointed out in your editorial, is that the people without cars are subsiding those who have cars. This has to be wrong.

About a quarter of Richmond's households don't have cars. It is a dead certainty that they are poorer on average that the half of Richmond's households who have one car, and a lot poorer on average than the quarter of Richmond's households who have more than one car.

Sir David Williams, former Leader of Richmond Council, Arlington Road, Petersham.