Residents should not pay for parking problems

REGARDING the excellent article by Aisha Iqbal (Yorkshire Post, October 1) concerning the Leeds City Council (LCC) parking policy, I would like to correct 
one of the assertions in the 
article.

In the suburbs, unlike the inner city terraces that are plagued by visitors to city centre institutions, the ability to park outside one’s house during the day is not an issue.

The problem in the suburbs prior to restrictions was the indiscriminate railway commuter parking that all too frequently blocked access to streets for service and emergency vehicles.

Applying a socialist “one-size-fits-all” policy across the whole of Leeds, where there is a wide range of differing circumstances, is wrong and of questionable legality.

As a matter of principle, residents living close to stations should not have to pay for problems caused by commuters. It is both LCC whose decisions have exacerbated the commuting problem and the commuters themselves who should pay; existing residents did not cause the problem.

Also not mentioned in 
the article but an increasing menace are the number recognition cameras on limited-time retailcar parks, where a number of users have been penalised for properly visiting a car park more than once in the same day and for using the car park during the late evening when the shops are closed.

The legislation governing the use of these punitive cameras clearly needs tightening.

From: Michael J Robinson, Park Lane, Berry Brow, Huddersfield.

IN your report about private car park protection patrols 
being forbidden from using 
wheel clamps, we are told 
that the firms are using 
CCTV and automatic 
number plate recognition to identify vehicle owners 
and acquire names and 
addresses to issue penalty 
tickets.

How does it happen 
that these “private enforcement firms” gain accreditation to be permitted access to what I believed was strictly protected data?

Are we happy that 
wheel clampers by another 
guise know where we live?