The real shame about the County Council’s loss of parking revenue is that OUR county will not reap the potential benefit.

It is a perfectly reasonable debate as to whether free parking increases companies’ business in affected areas – history shows that it does. But this does not feed through into an increase in rates receipts by the local authorities taking the reduction on parking meter income. Rather it goes straight to Whitehall for redistribution around the country, holding down council taxes elswhere!

Environmental concerns are also overstated. Most evenings many metered parking spaces are empty – the primary exception being St Giles itself. Check out Mansfield Road, Museum Road, Merton Street, Wellington Square, Great Clarendon Street and others. But I also know that to avoid meters people drive further, for example in Jericho’s residential streets, checking the few free non-residents’ spaces first.

Now that services like the Barton to Kidlington bus are gone, even getting from parts of east Oxford to Jericho, let alone from out of town, is a sufficiently awkward journey by bus as to be offputting, especially if you’re going to be late returning in the evening.