Wayland Van Hildyck Smith, of Forde Park, Newton Abbot, writes:

Re loss of car spaces in Asda.

If it wasn’t so pathetic one would laugh. Same old excuses, same errors of common sense and judgement time and time again.

I am of course referring to the ludicrous suggestion that 55 parking places are to be sacrificed in Asda to incorporate yet another filling station when there is already a proliferation such as East Street (the nearest).

One remembers that Sainsbury’s were promised faithfully, as were the local residents, that they would never allow a filling station there... short memories!

Not only a filling station appeared with the usual assurance of the council that local residents would not be disturbed by the extra traffic and certainly not by fumes and smell, a carwash also appeared despite many protestations all were, as usual, ignored.

I wonder why so many houses went up for sale!

When the town flats were built, with more protestations, over Carpetright by the traffic lights, there was difficulty apart from the noise, in off-loading them as there was no parking. Now, those at the time who were interested then put in many suggestions all of which were turned down, this time difficulty in getting any business house to take the lease of those spaces under the flats and again, no parking due to a totally illogical ‘law’ that says town flats do not need parking as the occupants will already be in the town!

All this time would-be flat owners were told there was plenty of parking spaces nearby in the town. Asda for example, which everyone knows who shops there, that if you are not there before 10am don’t bother it is full.

Latest is, that to utilise the site, the council have now agreed to the erection of a totally hideous out-of-keeping four-storey high edifice with four shops and 40 plus town flats and still no parking, and to do this they are still saying there is plenty of space to park such as Asda and in the same breath announce the store’s car parking spaces should be cut by 55, reducing what limited parking there is already.

Is that logical?