I READ carefully the letter from "disabled badge holder, Yorkley" with interest and can understand his or her frustration at the inconsistency observed at Mallards Pike but it raises the question of why disabled badge holders should enjoy free parking anyway?

Before the abuse for simply asking a question starts, I confirm that my wife is registered disabled and we are immensely grateful for the provision of parking spaces which enable wide opening of car doors to facilitate her often difficult entry to and exit from a car.

But why should we not pay to park if the public is charged to do the same thing? After all, we are the public.

Certainly society needs to make adequate provision for our disabled but poor working families pay through their taxes for car parks provision as well as for using them, so why should the disabled not pay for using them too; albeit that they can use the wider spaces, usually near points of destination entry, provided for their needs?

The taxpayer-funded mobility service is of course very valuable for many but I often wonder if our priorities are right when I look at the vehicles displaying blue badges and note their average age and value compared with the cars of rest of the tax-paying public parking in normal bays.

In the Forest towns we have the ludicrous situation of chargeable parking operations being subsidised by local taxpayers as income does not cover running costs.

Charging disabled badge holders for parking in disabled bays would help reduce that deficit although, best of all, get rid of the town parking charges altogether and save about £40,000 per annum in running costs (figures from the extrapolation of costs and income discovered after a Freedom of a Information request published in a previous Review) which could be spent on other council provision or, (he says tongue in cheek, knowing it would never happen) a reduction in Council Tax?

– Tom Atkinson, Lydney.