BRIGHTON and Hove City Council website contains the following statement about equality: "Brighton & Hove City Council recognises and welcomes the diversity of our city. We recognise that this is part of what makes our city great. A fair society means that people must be treated equally. We have duties to be fair and accessible in all our work."

How then can our council justify its discrimination against older people and those without smart phones by forcing pay by phone parking onto everyone?

Furthermore are they behaving legally in refusing to accept legal tender? Coins were still legal tender last time I checked.

I think they could be open to legal challenge on this. And should be, before this rot spreads across the country.

Personally I own a smart phone, a smart phone which often surfs the internet or takes photographs of the inside of my pocket without my knowledge so why the heck would I trust it with my bank account?

Furthermore, why on earth would I, as a non-criminal, trust a parking company with my bank details and wish my every legal parking action electronically traceable, even if I am just taking my distressed cat to the vets, not a task which gives you time to scour the area for alternative parking?

Then there is the equally unsolicited 10p ‘admin charge’ per ticket, which will surely creep up and up as time goes on as is the nature of these things.

Anyone who receives a ticket where there is no choice by pay by phone parking should write "Unable to pay. Legal tender not accepted by parking machine" and send their ticket back.

I very much doubt the council would have a legal leg to stand on since I cannot trace any information on the enforceability of pay by phone tickets and this technology is still very much in its infancy, Brighton and Hove being one of the first mass experiments in it.

This policy is also disastrous for Brighton’s businesses as more and more people will avoid parking in certain areas altogether.

Laura King, Brunswick Street East, Hove