Last week’s letter from Liberal Democrat councillor Jon Hubbard sees him clinging to the popular free car parking cause, but complaining when prospective Conservative MP Michelle Donelan also expressed support for changes to parking charges.

We all like the idea that something is free, but, somebody else has to pay for your ‘free’. Supermarkets are well aware of this and happily cover the cost of free parking in pricing their goods. Wiltshire Council does not have goods to sell; it cannot increase the council tax or rob other services, so it has to cover the cost of car parks through charges.

Last year, Jon Hubbard persuaded Melksham Town Council to introduce a parking charge redemption scheme where traders reimburse motorist’s parking costs and reclaim this subsidy from the town council. The scheme’s cost to the town council started at a high of only £5 per month to the recent low of less than £1 per month. This hardly indicates any shopper’s concern for parking charges and costs much more to administer than it refunds. If Jon were concerned for the cost of council staff time, he should stop this nonsense, unless of course he intends to support another 25 per cent hike in town council rate as he did last year.

One very simple and popular parking system was operated by the Conservative Kennet District Council for several years. Motorists had a paper disc to display which allowed short-stay parking without the irritation of wasting time collecting a ticket and machine cost in printing a ticket. The machines only issued tickets for longer stays.

With the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives in coalition government, Jon Hubbard will know of the huge problems of the last few years in coping with the previous Labour administration’s massive deficit, and its effect on local authority spending. Instead of accusing Michelle Donelan of hypocrisy and carping over his council’s stance on parking, why not have a go UKIP’s hypocrisy and their absurd policies instead.

Richard Wiltshire, Melksham Town Councillor, Conservative.