CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine Griffin-Singh. She and her trader colleagues have scored an outstanding success. They have managed to persuade Tory councillors to buy into the myth of free parking for life. Sadly, almost everyone else in the community will lose

CONGRATULATIONS to Elaine Griffin-Singh. She and her trader colleagues have scored an outstanding success. They have managed to persuade Tory councillors to buy into the myth of free parking for life.

Sadly, almost everyone else in the community will lose.

The proposed car park is as far from the station as any other long-stay car park in the city so those car parks will have to be made short-stay to provide any extra spaces. That will be fine for tourists, shoppers and maybe the traders, but bad for anyone who works in the city and the residents of the streets where they will be forced to park. Not surprisingly, the traders have already started to put out misleading propaganda against a proposal for a residents parking scheme for the central area.

It is bad for the rail travellers. They will lose the opportunity to have more parking near the station in favour of an isolated site more than half a mile from the station. Don't worry about the extra security and the safe path - they will prove too expensive for the budget once more accurate figures are calculated.

The proposed car park is very isolated. No one lives or works near the site after 6pm. This will feel very threatening, especially as rail travellers will have the company of young drivers practising handbrake turns when they return to their cars after a long day in the office.

The Council Tax payers of the whole of East Cambridgeshire will lose too as they will have to pay the £1 million for the car park that nobody uses.

STEVE SMITHSON

Osier Close

Ely