SIR — Your story City centre disappointments (Herts Advertiser, April 3) deserves comment. The root of the whole problem lies in bad forward planning. If you are going to deliberately prevent hundreds of cars from parking outside shops that the occupant

SIR - Your story "City centre disappointments" (Herts Advertiser, April 3) deserves comment. The root of the whole problem lies in bad forward planning. If you are going to deliberately prevent hundreds of cars from parking outside shops that the occupants want to get to and therefore drive people away from the city centre instead of encouraging them to visit, what you do is construct a multi-storey car park first, before closing the streets for months and driving shopkeepers out of business.

So many opportunities have been lost in recent years to provide the 5,000 parking spaces St Albans is short of. The site of the old Godfrey Davis site in London Road - now Benedictine Place flats - was right next to the existing multi-storey car park. Access roads were in place and the opportunity was missed after the site stood empty for years and with many letters in your newspaper pleading with the district council to get on with it. It is because of their gross negligence that the city is in the state it is now. Is the council determined to close St Albans down?

FRANK BRITTAIN

Slimmons Drive, St Albans.