Councillor Martin Hunt (Letters, November 7) may be surprised to know I am well aware there cannot be a soft outcome to a parking restriction.

What I find most curious is how a person can park in the same street for a few minutes to collect a prescription from the chemist, move up the same street to shop at the local supermarket, and is deemed to have “returned within two hours”.

In a case like this, the softer approach must surely come from the parking attendant. The only outcome then being the customer will return to shop local, again.

As for Mr Hunt’s theory I am for clogging up the road to the community stadium, my letters have not mentioned this. Parking allowed along one side only would certainly be a compromise, and as for clogging up the street outside someone’s house, it happens most days in my street (tradesmen and visitors). We just have to get on with it. No football supporters here.

Side-street parking around the Layer Road ground worked in the old days (outside someone else’s house). How selfish was that? Builders often take up five or six spaces in the same street when working on a property. How selfish is that?

You simply cannot define a legally-parked vehicle as selfish, even if you don’t like it outside your own house (my own house included).

The council has a stake in the community stadium and presumably wants it to succeed. Time alone will tell if the draconian parking restrictions have a negative effect on the number of people attending. Crowds of 4,000 are not showing signs of increasing in any great numbers.

I suggest Mr Hunt sits down and comes up with a solution that will improve the situation for the football club. If the U’s start getting 8,000 crowds on a regular basis, I shall be quite happy to admit I was wrong and the council was right with regard to the current parking stance.

Keith Paxon
Village Way
Kirby Cross