WELL, well ‘Parking Revenue Tumbles’ (Echo, November 18) – to keep these ailing car parks in business, it’s the charges which ought to tumble, and then the council might achieve a higher income.

Poole car parking charges are a disgrace. I remember Hill Street and the Dolphin car parks being built in the late 1960s and early 1970s; so what, other than ground rent, do they need to pay for these buildings in 2011?

They must have paid for themselves a million times over by now, so 30p an hour would be far better as a charge, and they would be better used.

Yes, the petrol is forever on the increase, so we are not going to town as often. We are shopping on foot, locally, in our satellite towns and villages, and we are shopping online, buying our supermarket food and other essential items online, and having them delivered to our front door – no petrol costs, no car park fee.

So before the council thinks that putting the prices up will help cover their shortfall, it will be in fact the opposite.

Otherwise Poole will just be a ghost town, with tumbleweed blowing around those gaunt, disused car parks. Think on.

ALAN BURRIDGE, Blandford Road, Upton