WEST Devon Borough Council appears to be chasing its own tail in hiking Tavistock parking fees, presumably to make up for the cost of paying the traffic wardens employed to enforce the town's exisiting parking restrictions.
How rescinding the availability of parking permits to homebuyers wishing to purchase property on Dolvin Road (High Handed and Undemocratic, Times, November 4) — which may not come up for sale for decades — will boost coffers in the short or medium term, is a mystery.
Unlike other areas in Tavistock with limited parking, permits were granted to Dolvin Road residents when the availability of on-street parking was removed in 2000. Is a decision to re-route the main Okehampton road on the cards?
No other homes in the town stand to lose up to thousands of hard-earned pounds on the value of their home through lack of exisiting parking, as is likely to happen to Dolvin Road residents through this decision.
If residents in other areas of the town — and the employees of local businesses who contribute to the local economy — feel that there is an 'inequality' as WDBC stated, then perhaps it is time to petition the council over why a resident/employee parking permit costs an annual market rate of £720 in Tavistock, as opposed to an annual £66 for resident in London's South Kensington, (where a two-bed cottage costs around £1.5-million), for which non-residents are charged at £3 an hour?
Catherine Barnes
Dolvin Road
Tavistock