Grossly unfair

SIR — Further to the parking survey issued this week by St Albans District Council, I urge residents of Zone M to add their comments to the survey regarding the grossly unfair allocation of exclusive parking spaces to residents of particular properties wi

SIR - Further to the parking survey issued this week by St Albans District Council, I urge residents of Zone M to add their comments to the survey regarding the grossly unfair allocation of exclusive parking spaces to residents of particular properties within St Albans Zone M.

I refer to the five spaces in Pearces Walk car park, the three spaces on Pageant Road and the two spaces on Albert Street. This affects everyone in Zone M who will be very familiar with the nightly routine of returning from work and driving around all streets in the zone in the vain hope of finding a space.

Question 9 "should the policy be amended to one of the following?" contains a list which focuses only on reducing/limiting available permits or increasing charges. It does not however propose the alternative of increasing the number of available spaces equally to all by allowing all residents access to all spaces.

It seems preposterous that the council decided to grant exclusive parking rights in the first place. Why should one group of residents have greater rights than another?

Equally preposterous is that where some of the council properties have been bought by the occupiers or sold into the private market, the exclusive parking allocation has not been relinquished and returned for all other residents to share. I would be interested to know if the council even have the right to sell this land without public consultation.

Any comments from the Council on who actually owns the land, their reasons for providing exclusive parking to particular properties and any plans to abolish this unfair allocation would be welcome.

I should emphasise that this is not in any way an attack on those residents who have been allocated with these spaces. It is simply an attack on a blatantly unfair and unequal system. A fair system would be one where neighbours have an equal right to parking spaces, this is not currently the case.

If the same situation is happening in other St Albans zones, I also urge you to make your feelings known on the parking survey.

C. GILES,

Albert Street, St Albans.