Why parking charges must be resisted

The very thing that Bexhill '“ if it doesn't put up the kind of fight that reminds councillors where their votes come from '“ will have foisted on it.

It took a question on the so-useful Ask The Leader slot on the www.rother.gov.uk website to winkle out the fact that Rother council has been quietly in discussion over the possibility of East Sussex County Council taking over parking enforcement.

"De-criminalisation" is a euphemism for Sussex Police dumping an unwanted function on to the county council '“ who in turn install masses of parking meters as a means to milk the motorist of money.

Ostensibly, this outlay is to cover the cost of employing meter attendants. The same argument is employed by NHS Trusts.

They say that meters are necessary in order to the employ attendants necessary to provide the control and security required at hospital car parks.

Yet when Wales decided it would no longer allow Trusts to charge patients and their relatives for hospital parking the Trusts threw up their hands in horror and said the lost income would hit patient services.

So that cat has been let well and truly out of the bag...

Former Rother leader Graham Gubby was not without his critics while in office but one of the things that will always remain to his credit was that he consistently and robustly rebuffed county attempts to push Rother into "de-criminalisation" despite the veiled threat that without it the county would be unable to afford transport investment locally.

If there was good reason for Rother resisting the pressure then there is even greater reason now.

We are teetering on the edge of a national recession.

Eastbourne has a far bigger town centre than Bexhill's with the pulling power of numerous multiple stores.

Yet realists there can see the damage that the cost and needless hassle to the shopper that parking meters bring.

How much greater would the devastation be if Bexhill's fragile economy had to withstand the menace?

Paid-for parking will not create a single extra parking space in Bexhill.

Instead it will drive still more shoppers away from the independent businesses which are the life-blood of Bexhill town centre into the grateful arms of the big companies with out-of-town stores at Ravenside or their own store-side off-street parking.

There is a cost to everything.

The cost of paid-for parking would be empty shops, less shopper spending-power to be shared among those which survive and a nasty surprise at the polling station for those who fail to fight Bexhill's corner.