Traders and the city council badly need to reach an acceptable compromise over the messy business of parking waivers.

The council is right to insist on some sort of system to ensure people in white vans need permission before parking on double yellow lines or in residents' bays to carry out urgent work on houses and shops.

But it needs to ensure the system is cheap and not bureaucratic. Neither is the case at present.

Traders, instead of bringing the city to a halt every few weeks with noisy protests, need to acknowledge there is not enough space for all people to park where they want and some sort of rationing is inevitable.

If they can carry out their jobs at less busy hours, or arrange several at the same time, so much the better.

Councillors and officials should sit round a table with traders' leaders and work out a simple system agreeable to both sides. It really shouldn't be that difficult.