I havw just had the rather dubious pleasure of paying a parking fine for parking for 15 minutes in the St Clement’s car park between 7.10am and 7.25am in order to take someone to work.

It always used to be free until 8am but has been changed which I hadn’t realised, although there is a sign cunningly hidden behind some bushes.

I wouldn’t mind but the city council feels that an appropriate fine for not paying a £1.40 overnight charge for 15 minutes is £100!

Just to make sure they wring every last penny out of their taxpayers they pay an employee to drive round the site in a shiny council van to see how many of the four cars in the car park at 7am they can sting.

I know that your correspondent John Tanner’s reasoning will be that I was pretty stupid to use a car rather than a tandem bicycle to transport my colleague to work.

However, I fail to see how sending a van round all the car parks is contributing to a cleaner, greener, slower Oxford.

Surely the councils should remove all these vans and scooters they use and invest in some CCTV tricycles instead.

MURRAY HARDING
Church Cowley Road
Oxford