Bournemouth spends a lot of money encouraging people to visit.

Yet their town centre parking policy seems designed to do the opposite.

If one wishes to go out in the evening for a meal and the cinema along Westover Road and wishes to use the car parks by the Pavilion or Royal Bath then it means leaving ones cinema or theatre seat at 10pm to put more money in the parking machines.

This is because one cannot pay in advance if one wishes to stay beyond 10pm.

After that it is all night parking which cannot be paid for until that time.

One can, of course, pay for twenty-four hour parking but this is very costly.

When we complained to the council we were told to write in as there have been a great number of complaints.

This we have done but there must be many people, ourselves included, who will not visit again until this ridiculous situation is changed.

Malcolm Rodker Pearce Avenue, Poole