PLEASE give the liberty to point out the misleading headline: Car parking service gets an overhaul (Times, February 17).
The article does not go on to say who this service is serving. It is obvious that it is not serving the people of Hatherleigh, a town that has been hit extremely hard over the past few years due to the agricultural problems highlighted in your newspaper.
It is not serving our local representative on West Devon Borough Council, Cllr D Bater. The only people it seems to be serving are the bureaucracy of West Devon Borough Council.
I can see no benefit to the people of Hatherleigh in imposing car parking charges as they will not encourage visitors to the town and its businesses but they will encourage parking on the narrow streets of the town by locals and visitors alike.
Shops and businesses are closing in Hatherleigh, in no small part due to the Business Rate, which helps to pay our servant Mr Mark Hall (the borough council's head of commercial services).
He stresses that it is important that auditors are employed, no doubt paid for by the council to keep a track of the service as well as two more employees to enforce the service. I sincerely hope the council will pay these people out of the £11,000 it hopes to raise from the service. He admits that the service is not economically sound. I would assert it is not socially or morally sound either, so why do it?
As the expansion of the service is based on a scientific method it should be made available for study and thereby repeated so the people of Hatherleigh will at least see the reasons for this ridiculous idea.
Neil Price
Aishcross House
Petrockstowe