Richard Scott, in his letter to the Marlow Free Press (June 13), despite agreeing that there is no easy solution to the complicated issue of parking in Marlow, suggests that those wishing to park in residential streets will be dissuaded from doing so if parking charges in off-street car parks are reduced.

Unfortunately, recent experience of just such a scheme suggests that this approach is unlikely to work.

Senior pupils of Borlase’s School have an arrangement whereby they are allowed to park completely free of charge in the car park of Marlow Sports Club.

However, despite this, and the fact that the headmaster has specifically ruled that students should not park in residential streets around the school, they continue to do so. They ignore both the offer of free parking and the specific instructions of their headmaster and park wherever they choose to avoid a brief walk from the car park.

It is also disturbing that there appears to be a view held by some of the town’s traders and those who work for them, supported by some local councillors, that it is perfectly acceptable, and indeed desirable, for residential streets near office, factory and retail premises in the town to be used, free of charge for all-day parking, by those coming to work there.

The false assumption being made appears to be that all those living in these streets will themselves have left to work elsewhere during the day.

This is not just an issue of residents being unable to park outside their own homes, which in the case of those with their own garages and driveways may not be too much of an inconvenience, but more a question of the inability of street cleaning, delivery and emergency vehicles to gain access to, and move along, such streets.

Contrary to what Cllr Scott seems to believe, the evidence is that the only solution to the parking problems experienced in congested urban areas like the town of Marlow, as well as elsewhere in the UK and around the world, involves more parking restrictions, including an appropriate charging, regime, and encouragement of the use of public transport.

It appears from Cllr Scott’s letter that just such a solution has been proposed by Bucks County Council, but rejected by populist councillors, for fear of upsetting some of their electorate.

Derek Done, Harwood Road, Marlow