THE quote from Cllr Mandy Govier in last week?s Times in the story relating to the introduction of car-parking charges in Chagford and Hatherleigh says it all: ? . . . tourists are used to paying for car parking, and would probably laugh if not asked to pay,? she quips.

When, oh when will those who seek to ?manage? our towns and villages start to take account of the needs of those who actually live there, as opposed to considering everything only from the viewpoint of the holiday visitor?

The problem of parking in Chagford (and many other similar rural communities) will never be solved until consideration is given to a few basic facts of life in 21st century Devon. In particular, the recognition that the car is the basic and ? to all intents and purposes ? only means of transport in rural areas like West Devon, is long overdue.

Its accommodation within the infrastructure must be taken into account as a basic precept of planning, not as some evil to be addressed by painting ever more lines on the road and spattering the place with hundreds of unsightly signs.

It?s also about time that the thinking about tourism became a little less one-dimensional; not everbody in rural Devon relies on the tourist trade for their livelihood, and the constant pressures, constraints and extra costs piled onto those of us trying to run a whole variety of other locally-based businesses are becoming untenable.

But most of all it is the disjointed and unrealistic attitude taken by the ?managers? ? the Highways Authority and West Devon Borough ? to the whole matter of car ownership and use in rural areas that really irks.

This attitude was neatly summed up in a remark made by a planner at the recent ?consultation? in Chagford on the proposed parking: ?Of course,? said this perceptive worthy, ?If you have a car and you live in somewhere like Chagford and there?s nowhere to park it, then that?s your problem.?

No, Mr Planner, it is not. We ? the residents ? pay heavy levels of local taxation to you and your colleagues to provide us with the services that we need, which include the provision of adequate parking to support the economic life of the town.

We do not pay you to make our lives impossible with cack-handed and unrealistic schemes of regulation or opportunist tax-raising by the local authority.

Far from helping the situation, this ludicrous combination of measures effectively and substantially reduces the parking options available to residents and thus simply compounds the problem. It also flies directly in the face of the clearly-expressed wishes of the people living in both places (the 400+ signatures mentioned for Chagford?s petition is more than one-third of the entire population) and shows just how unaccountable and arrogant our local ?democracy? has become.

Iain A Rice

18 New Street

Chagford

RESIDENTS and the business community in both Chagford and Hatherleigh have been making protests about the imposition of charges for the use of car parks in their respective townships.

Why should their facilities be free when nobody else enjoys such largesse?

I live in the area known as Okehampton Hamlets which surround the town and have to use my car to do my shopping and so pay the charge stipulated by the authorities.

Why cannot the business community in both Chagford and Hatherleigh offer a rebate to offset the new charges as part of a predetermined level of purchases as one of the supermarkets does successfully here, and so maintain loyalty rather than expect us to subsidise it as has been the case until now?

Surely that is only fair and is the logical solution.

Derek Godfrey Brown

Larkbeare

Okehampton