MARK Harper is most unlikely to be able to influence Forest of Dean District Council to change their views on purely local car parking charges, but there is something he could do to improve the situation nationally. I believe there is a procedure whereby MPs can introduce into the House of Commons Private Members' Bills. If so, may I suggest Mr Harper does just that, with a view to changing what laws there already are (if any) so that the motorist actually benefits from car parking charges. I suggest such a law would require three clauses, as follows:

1. Where the owners of a car park allow motorists to park on it free of charge, they are entitled to display notices disclaiming responsibility for the safety of the cars and their contents.

2. Where the owners of a car park charge motorists to park on it, then they must accept unlimited financial and legal responsibility for the safety of the cars and their contents because that is what the motorists are paying for.

3. Where machines which issue car parking tickets are installed, motorists must pay on exit, not entrance, so the motorists pay for the time they spend there, and not the time they are expected to guess at beforehand.

The car park at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital has the right idea. ?You obtain the ticket from one machine when you arrive, and put it in another machine when you leave, having paid for the time spent on the car park. The car park in Bath Road, Cheltenham, is not so good. You pay when you arrive and hope you guess right about the time you return. If you return early, it is possible to hand your ticket to someone else so they may benefit from the time left on the ticket.

In?Cornwall, the car park in Tintagel is worse. That machine has a keyboard, and it will not issue the ticket until you have typed in the registration number of your car. This is to prevent you doing that good turn for someone else.

I hope Mark Harper will now take the appropriate action and get the laws concerning car parks on the Statute Book in time to enable Forest of Dean District Council to forget the whole idea of charging for car parks. Motorists have to pay more than enough already to make their cars go.?They should not have to pay extra to make them stop.

– Anthony Reeve, Oak Way, Littledean.