HINDSIGHT is meant to be, or so I thought, a most valuable asset. Quoted in The Forester on January 10, 2008 Mark Harper MP said: "To justify any move away from the status quo and introduce car parking charges would require some compelling evidence of the benefit to Forest residents. I have looked carefully at all the information produced by the council so far but I don't see any benefit from this policy."

Three-and-a-half years on I would seriously doubt that anything has changed – other than the council's brazen insensitivity in attempting to put more pressure on small town centre businesses in these austere times.

In 2008, the council produced a document called "Future Management of Car Parking" in the Forest which in no way outlined a business case that would conceivably work. Subsequently the scheme at that time was not progressed.

At the full council meeting on December 4, 2008, I asked the following question: "How much expenditure has been spent on the proposed introduction of car parking in the Forest of Dean"? Some two months on I eventually got the answer, £36,098! A significant amount of public money wasted on achieving absolutely nothing. Crazy, and now they want to repeat the exercise.

Believe me, there are many ways of saving money at Coleford without impacting on or penalising local residents or small businesses any further. Tackle your councillors if you can find them.

Alan Preest

Lydney