THE letter by Laura Hook about parking permits in today’s Oxford Mail (May 18) took my mind back into the past.

There was a time that if the local bobby saw a car parked on the road and it was still there when he returned you would get a knock on the door and then be told to move the obstruction.

Even on the occasion when I pointed out that for the short while my car was there, in this little close, it was unlikely to cause an obstruction, I was told quite forcefully, that this was not a parking lot but the public highway and that in law my car constituted an obstruction and that if I didn’t move it I’d be booked.

In those days, if you had nowhere to park on your own property you rented a lock-up.

If there was no lock-up available, you couldn’t own a car.

What went wrong to get us into a position where cars are now allowed to litter every available street

DERRICK HOLT
Fortnam Close
Headington
Oxford