I READ with interest the comments in The Crow last week suggesting free parking during the time leading up to Christmas. It is a step in the right direction. But free parking should be from January 1 to December 31 each year – and that s the only way to a

I READ with interest the comments in The Crow last week suggesting free parking during the time leading up to Christmas.

It is a step in the right direction. But free parking should be from January 1 to December 31 each year - and that's the only way to attract people to the town centre again.

Councillor F John Smith said in the report that it was a "sensible" idea, and that there were months to put it in place.

He has got that wrong because the parking situation in Royston is of the utmost urgency, which needs to be dealt with now.

Tesco, with its free parking, has a monopoly on the whole retail trade of Royston.

I took this matter to the then Royston MP Ian Stewart, who told me that the development of Tesco would enhance the town centre. How wrong he was.

I would like to see the Royston Town Hall car park made into a two-tier system to make more parking spaces available.

If Johnson Matthey and Tesco are so publicly attuned as they would have us believe, they can perhaps between them fund such a project.

As Tesco says: "Every little helps."

D ELLINGTON

North Close

Royston