WHILE I welcome any review of parking policy in the borough, the proposals put forward by Conservative councillors in the letter from Cllr Hemsted to ease parking restrictions in the Waltham Forest area show how out of touch with reality they are.

While I am sure that all Waltham Forest residents would support their local businesses, this is not the way forward. As we live just off Hoe Street, Greenleaf Road residents fought for a number of years to get a CPZ introduced because of the parking difficulties experienced on a day to day basis, caused by non-residents who treated our road as a free car park.

The level of parking caused considerable inconvenience and distress to those residents who had difficulty in parking in their own road. These difficulties extended to shoppers who also rarely had an opportunity to park, as any parking spaces were always taken.

The so called “temporary easing” of parking restrictions would not benefit businesses by allowing customers to park. It would instead be a field day for all those who wish to avoid car parking fees.

Residents living in these streets would again suffer considerable inconvenience and shoppers would still be unable to park.

The irony is that, in fact, shoppers probably benefit more from current arrangements, whereby they can make use of time constrained free bays or visitors’ permits obtained from businesses to enable them to park.

Talking to other Waltham Forest residents has confirmed that many others have suffered similar experiences.

Consequently, I suspect that opposition within council to this ridiculous idea is less to do with “party politics”, as claimed by Councillor Hemsted, and more to do with the fact that other councillors care more about residents living in their wards than the Conservatives appear to do.

Iain Caldow, Greenleaf Road, Walthamstow.