Parking nightmare - planners are the problem (From Western Telegraph)

Parking nightmare - planners are the problem

Dear Editor, - Your leader article of August 4th echoes many public concerns about transport planning in Pembrokeshire as expressed by readers' letters in the same issue. Park-and-ride schemes are all very well, provided adequate car parking is provided.

But, without public parking close by, such schemes will not be viable. In the meantime county council planners are doing their best to close down public car parks, and to allow the re-development of private car parks.

The net result will be increased congestion, frustration and danger to everyone who must use private cars (and that's most of us) because public transport is virtually non-existent and likely to remain so.

Businesses in town centres will suffer as the planners work to develop 'traffic calming measures' and new pedestrian-only areas to overcome the very problems which they have created. As a planner myself I can see that planners are not just 'part of the problem' - they are the problem!

Having just completed a marathon exercise in pursuing objections to the JUDP on behalf of the Pembrokeshire Association of Local Councils, I can attest that hardly any of our objections have been taken seriously and our objections have not led to any significant alterations to the JUDP published in 2002.

The planners clearly think they are infallible, and for them any public consultation is just a nuisance.

For example, we objected to the absence of any car parking policy in the JUDP, which would identify where parks were needed and their size. We were told that as it is now Government policy to reduce public car parks in order to reduce cars, no more car parks would be allowed and so such a policy was not needed.

What the county council needs to do is to sack its planning team and for its elected members to use their common sense to do the job they were elected for.

RICHARD SHEPHERD Whalecwm House, The Ferry, Cosheston.