Peter Gregson, of South­ford Road, Dartmouth, writes:

The time has come when something has to be done about parking in Dartmouth.

This is not just another complaint, this is a demand and the people who both live and work here can no longer be ignored.

While there is an understandable preoccupation with the tourist industry, without the people who work in the town there would be no tourist industry.

If the parking issue is not addressed, the danger is that Dartmouth will start to lose businesses as employees look for accessible jobs elsewhere, leaving a museum town of pensioners.

And not everyone in Dartmouth works in the tourist industry. There are solicitors with their secretaries; the doctors and their patients; the shopkeepers; the local newspaper crew; the whole yacht support industry; the ferrymen; the builders who seem to be everywhere; and the retirees whose money keeps the town alive through the down season.

They all either live here or come in everyday to work and they all own and rely on cars.

We live in the 21st century when cars are as an important factor in our lives as flushing toilets and hot water. What we need is some blue-sky thinking, some really creative ideas.

I suggest that you start a forum where people can put forward ideas, however crazy, so that we can go to South Hams Council with the positive suggestions that they seem to be incapable of coming up with and find a solution, particularly for the people who drive into Dartmouth every day for work.