I?WAS very pleased to read in last week's Times that Devon County Councillor, Debo Sellis has listened to the call for residents' parking, acknowledges the parking problems in town centre residential streets, and that she and the county council are looking into it.

However, local residents who visited the Tavistock Traf?c Consultation are very concerned with the Devon County ideas for new restrictions and yellow lines in town centre residential streets, which could mean the loss of essential residents parking spaces.

I must stress that the problem of residents' parking is not isolated to just Bannawell Street, but is a growing problem for all town centre residential streets from King Street, Taylor Square, Parkwood Road and Chapel Street where residents don't have the luxury of off-street parking.

It is caused by all-day parking in residential streets by commuters to avoid parking charges in the public car parks, but town workers are oblivious to the serious knock-on effect for residents, causing dif?culties for unloading shopping, children, push-chairs or elderly passengers, particularly during inclement weather.

For years, Devon County Council has blocked the introduction of residents' parking, initially because there were insuf?cient parking enforcement of?cers.

But when enforcement of?cer numbers signi?cantly increased after the borough council took over parking enforcement, the criteria was then linked to the introduction of on-street pay and display in the town centre and when that idea was shelved, the county council came up with yet a new requirement, that residents' parking would only be considered as part of a Tavistock Park and Ride scheme.

If more commuter parking was encouraged to move to public car parks the residents' parking would be resolved whilst simultaneously increasing the borough council's revenue.

This isn't an attack on commuters but more about an opportunity for the borough council and county council to engage more comprehensively with commuters and to explore possible solutions such as a Commuter Scheme with an attractive commuter parking tariff to encourage a greater use of council car parks or, perhaps, a Tavistock car sharing scheme supported by the borough council and hosted on the council website.

Let's face the facts, residents'parking already exists in many towns all over the country. Even in Tavistock, Old Exeter Road has had residents' parking for many, many years, so why not other town centre residential streets?

Cllr Jeff Moody

Independent West Devon Borough Council ward member for Tavistock North