City's parking problems are spreading outwards

The recent changes to the residents parking arrangements have moved the problem of commuter - and at this time of the year day trippers wanting to enjoy Hove seafront - ever further westwards.

I don't blame these people at all.

We have all parked on the road in other neighbourhoods or towns before. It doesn't make the person doing it a criminal but it does place people in conflict with one another, who would otherwise have been model and happy citizens living happily alongside each another.

What I do feel strongly about is the total disregard and contempt that councillors and Brighton and Hove City Council have for my views and those of my fellow residents.

Vote them out, I hear you say. But what good would that do? Replacing one lot of incompetent tinkerers with another lot, what's the point?

What motivates the council to implement these parking schemes?

Is it to raise revenue with a stealth tax? Or is it no more worthy a cause than the wish to be seen to be doing something even if that something doesn't work?

We previously lived in central Brighton where we readily accepted the parking problems that came with living in a central area. When we started a family we moved out of the city centre because we wanted to live in an area where you could park outside your house in a less congested environment.

What I didn't expect is to have the parking problems of the inner city brought to my front door. Ultimately it is an unsustainable policy. Is the next stage to spread parking restrictions to Boundary Road, then on to Fishersgate and Shoreham? Where does it end, Penzance?

The failure of this policy is that it will always create a problem on the outer edge of the restricted zone.

Also, there are knock-on effects for the local economy. A large number of businesses have been affected by the parking changes. In Poets Corner and Portland Road there are a number of office buildings that have limited car parking. Previously this shortfall was met by surrounding streets. These businesses used spaces vacated by local residents who were elsewhere during the day.

Now these buildings are being shunned in favour of out of town business parks or other towns such as Lancing and Worthing.

We are going to be left with an empty husk of a city with a big car park surrounding it. Please can somebody tell us who to vote for to reverse this madness?

• Simon Forrest, Roman Road, Hove

Although I was pleased to see The Argus covered the two days of action in the Wish Park area, highlighting the pressures that a broad range of people experience due to the poorly implemented parking policies of the council, my overriding and lasting emotion is distress.

If anyone needed proof that the policies are divisive and counterproductive, pitching different sections of the community against one another, then it is there in the 46-plus comments from readers of The Argus that the article attracted online.

Perhaps Councillor Garry Peltzer-Dunn in his new role as mayor will be able to help resolve this situation.

He publicly stated that the council has a "moral obligation" to reconsult the area. The council's own complaints office acknowledged that the consultation was "flawed" and "misleading".

This is the root cause of residents' anger and the target of the action weekend.

The promise of a consultation in 2010, grouping the Wish Park area in with a different set of roads in which most houses have garages and off-street parking is to misunderstand the problems in this area completely.

• Victoria Richardson, Marine Avenue, Hove

As someone who gave up their car about ten years ago and with no particular axe to grind on the parking issue, I find the attitude of some car owners quite astounding. Do the residents of the Wish Park area never park in front of other people's houses when they go out?

• Jackie Hawkins, Montgomery Street, Hove