On a whistlestop trip to Worcester I was reminded all over again how ridiculous the car parking charges levied by the council in Wiltshire’s county town are.

I pulled into the nearest city centre car park to my destination and got out, cursing the fact that I had very little cash on me and hoping against hope that the ticket machine was one that would accept a credit card, only to find that parking for 30 minutes, more than enough time to collect something from a shop, would cost me all of ...60p.

I nearly collapsed with amazement. The short stay car park on Church Street, the Trowbridge equivalent, costs £1 for an hour, while the long stay car park on Duke Street is 80p for an hour (but I don’t want an hour, I’m only collecting a parcel from the Post Office round the corner, you cry). And Duke Street is a princely £5.90 to park all day.

It’s no wonder people who work in the town no longer use the car parks, apart from the free parking on some levels of the multi-storey. Or that people park in the County Hall spaces at the weekends and trudge up to the shops or cinema.

When I first came to work here, if you weren’t at your desk by 8.30am you were hard pressed to get a space in the Duke Street car park. Now it stands empty for most of the day, and its main use seems to be as an unofficial coach park and transfer point for crowds of foreign teenagers visiting the area, and an occasional skateboard facility for youngsters too timid to brave the ‘bigger boys’ and their death-defying leaps on the official skatepark by the train station.

Maybe now Prorsus have finally started work on what was Bowyers, they’ll take the bold step of opening the old factory car park, next to the railway line, to us workers. Designed for parking, it would surely not take much work to make usable again. Charge £1 for all day parking there and you will have an income of, I reckon, at least £1,000 a week. Surely not something a sensible business wants to turn down, and the goodwill it will create will be immense.

I’m sorry if people who live in Trowbridge don’t like having cars outside their homes all day, but what’s the alternative, in these days of zero pay rises for many? Yes, those who park on-street need to take care not to block people’s drives – and to the person who often parks outside my house during the day, presumably at their own job while I’m at mine, I’d like to say I don’t mind at all.