Whose idea was it to increase parking fees even more when the town centre shopping trade is dying by the week?
This is another massive hammer blow for the businesses in town who are trying to make an honest living.
As a town centre resident, I am shocked, disappointed and livid that these increased charges also apply to parking permits too. When I moved from Kingsthorpe to the Billing Road area around 10 years ago, I did so for convenience. I could leave my car at home and walk to work. Isn't that what the Government was encouraging us to do?
Like millions of others, I have the need to own a car because public transport isn't good enough to get me everywhere I need and sometimes it is too far to walk.
But now I have to pay £40 to store my car in a dirty, litter-filled street that is full of potholes.
At the moment, us town centre dwellers already have to battle for a limited number of spaces. Most of the time we end up parking two or three streets from our homes.
If you are too late and all the spaces are taken, then we have to park in a goods bay, a two-hour space or on a single yellow line then you have to remember to move your car before a traffic warden slaps a £60 fine on your windscreen.
I would like to know exactly what benefits us residents are going to receive for our extra £15 pound a year. Cleaner streets, guaranteed parking spaces, a fee valet? I doubt it very much!
This is yet another way of squeezing every single penny out of honest people who have no say in the matter.
When I first moved into the town centre, my permit cost £5 per year, since then the price has risen by 700 per cent and, on top of that, my family now has to pay to come and visit. I'm sorry, but this is yet another bullet wound to our once-proud Northampton; how much longer before we are living in a ghost town?
Mark Kennedy,
Denmark Road, Northampton.

Another reason to go elsewhere
Why is it that everyone other than county councillors realises that the planned increases in parking and permit charges is simply unacceptable and yet one more reason to shop or do business anywhere other than in Northampton?
Have these councillors failed to notice the ever-decreasing number of open shops in our town, or indeed the exodus to Milton Keynes and other centres each weekend by locals who demand better value and a more pleasant environment in which to spend their money?
As a relative newcomer to Northampton (we have only lived here for 16 years), we are keen to support the community and do so by running a business and working in the area, as well as contributing on a voluntary basis to various educational activities. However, the way in which almost every aspect of our daily life is mis-managed by those in (local) authority leads us to conclude that a move out of the county must be on the cards.
The latest fiasco of inflation-busting increases for parking and permits – some by as much as 25 per cent – is symptomatic of the naive approach taken by our councillors to most issues. Presumably they are not concerned about the inevitable consequences.
To argue that the increases "reflect inflation" beggars belief, unless these charges have not gone up since 1999. To argue that the new charges will "bring us in line with other parking authorities" misses the point completely.
Apparently the council will "consider any feedback" to the changes. Nelson has more chance of getting his eye back than our council listening to common sense and reacting accordingly. I look forward with anticipation to the next installment of "life on Mars" . . . or the county council pronouncements, as it is better known!
G A Morgan,
The Old Manse, Northampton.

Parking hours need a change
I certainly agree that the rise to £40 for a residents' permit seems excessive, however, the proposal to adopt a voucher scheme for visitors' permits actually does have some potential benefits.
Currently I am only permitted one visitor at a time, with additional visitors having to juggle their cars around the two-hour restricted zones. The voucher scheme would allow me to use as many of these as I require at any point in time, for just 20p a time.
However, if we are to introduce charging for visitors' parking, the council would have to consider removing the window between 8-10am where the permit is invalid.
This is most inconvenient if you have visitors on a Friday night who then have to wake up prior to 8am on Saturday to move their car to a two-hour zone and then move it back to a permit zone at 10am.
Ian Lauer,
Ethel Street, Northampton.

Depressing town
My daughter lives in St James. The parking permits were supposed to stop rugby fans blocking all the streets on match days, not raise revenue for the council.
As proud new grandparents, we were keen to babysit the other afternoon, using our free bus pass. We duly left her home just after 7pm to catch a bus back into town and, guess what, at 7.45pm there were no buses from The Drapery to get us back to East Hunsbury and the whole adventure cost us over £6 in taxi fares.
We decided if she ever needed a late sit again, we would have to take our car. But now we read we will have to purchase these parking vouchers. This town depresses me!
Rosemary Brown,
Claregate, East Hunsbury, Northampton.

What stupidity!
You really could not make up the stupidity of this town's councils.
On one hand they say that all development of the outlying areas (ie Sixfields) must be co-ordinated with town centre upgrading. Now they propose to increase the cost of parking in the town centre, thereby driving out the people they wish to attract.
On top of this, any poor soul unfortunate enough to live within this area will be forced to pay more to park in their own street.
Now this would be possibly reasonable if the council enforced this rule, so that the residents could ensure that they could do this (that is find a parking place) but usually it is the case that places are taken by people just parking to go shopping and the parking wardens rarely do anything about it.
So why are the residents being asked to pay anything? It certainly does not give value for what is paid.
Doug Buckle,
Kentstone Close, Northampton.

I am outraged
I am a resident in St James and I am outraged at the near doubling of car park permits in my street from £25 to £40.
As if this was not enough, they now propose to charge us for a book of 50 permits at a cost of £10 for visitors.
I was one of those residents who campaigned for a residents' parking scheme as our problems were due to patrons of the Beacon Bingo Club and visitors to the Saints Rugby Club parking in our streets.
There has been a problem with the traffic wardens who patrol our streets and issue parking fines at 10am but who do not patrol between 6pm and 10pm, which is part of the period when some problems with illegal parking occur. It seems wardens patrol only from 8-10am, when there are no problems.
Ian McCann,
Elgin Street,
St James, Northampton.