SIR, — I refer to your story headlined No holiday for drivers (Herts Advertiser, March 27) as I feel that your reporting is deliberately emotive and contradictory. Firstly, let us take the headline itself. You say that there was no holiday for drivers

SIR, - I refer to your story headlined "No holiday for drivers" (Herts Advertiser, March 27) as I feel that your reporting is deliberately emotive and contradictory.

Firstly, let us take the headline itself. You say that there was "no holiday for drivers" over the Easter Bank Holiday Monday but then report that parking within the district car parks in Harpenden and St Albans was, in fact, free to "discourage parking on the roads". Does this not constitute some sort of "holiday" or certainly a reduction in parking restrictions?

The only facts within your story are that drivers who parked on the single yellow lines on Verulam Road over the Bank Holiday Monday received parking tickets. You do not dispute that there were no signs stating that parking restrictions were not enforceable on Bank Holidays yet you imply that the parking attendants were somehow vindictive and "booked motorists anyway".

If people chose to park on single yellow lines over the Bank Holiday without checking the signs regarding parking restrictions, they were either naive or took the chance that they would not be ticketed. How can you quote that they were "unsuspecting" or that the lifting of these restrictions is "generally accepted"?

Up until a few years ago there were no parking attendants in St Albans and motorists clearly took advantage of this. The district council has tried to address the situation by employing parking attendants and I feel that they are doing a good job. Let's face it, I'm sure they receive a lot of verbal abuse from motorists and their salaries must be way below the average for this city. I feel that rather than supporting our parking attendants who, unlike most of us, had to work over the Bank Holiday, your article further undermines their work and reinforces stereotypes. I feel that this is grossly unfair.

Maybe your headline should have been "No holiday for much-maligned parking attendants".

DAVID SIMKINS,

Harpenden Road, St Albans.