Funny, isn't it, how a few days away changes your perspective?

I have recently returned from Brussels, a city where the local authority understands that the way to improve transport and the environment is to make things better, not worse.

There, one can hire a cycle from points all over the city, returning it to another point after riding.

It's an easy, quick and cheap way to get around.

Of course, public transport is excellent, safe, clean and cheap, too - just a dream here in Oxford where we concentrate on ramping up restrictions and fines instead.

But what really struck me on my return home is the oppressive presence of parking stormtroops in Oxford, hovering like so many eager vultures.

Apparently, this parking militia generated £500,000 for the city council and £1.2m for the county council in fines alone last year. It seems this is insufficient for our ever-greedy councils, which are now telling their parking army they need to take more money in fines.

Approaching Christmas, they already have a spree enforcing the councils' ever more arcane parking regulations.

One simply has to watch them gleefully slapping tickets on the cars of visiting Christmas shoppers unfamiliar with the Kafkaesque way parking is administered in the city.

I wonder how many will go elsewhere next Christmas for their shopping?

It's a fine city, Oxford.

MARK McARTHUR-CHRISTIE, Church Street, Bampton