Thankfully the Marden Parish Newsletter has given me the means to voice my disapproval to the 4 hour restriction imposed on the car park by (according to the newsletter) the Parish Council.

First I should point out that I rarely use the Car Park although I have from time to time when going to London. This ludicrous and ill thought 4 hour restriction therefore doesn't effect me personally other than on a very few occasions. Nonetheless I know it effects many residents of Marden and its immediate surrounds and from the conversations I have had it is un wanted and unnecessary.

On the odd occasions I have used the car park in the past there was never any time when it was full so I do not accept the excuses of it being full etc etc. Whats more the cars that were using the spaces were cars belonging to people of the area. It is our car park and therefore people from Marden should be allowed to use it as and when they like, for as long as they like. If on the odd occasion a funeral can't park in there well so be it.

Of course there will be people who say commuters should use the car park at the train station. But the cost of this is far to much and any way this argument misses the point that the Marden Car Park should be available for Marden people whenever and for as long as they need to park. I don't recall any of us being asked about this imposition.

Now look at the car park its hardly used at all. The most I have seen in there since the imposition is six cars....so much for the argument that no one could use it before (if indeed this ever was an argument which I assume it was as it is the only logical explanation). A maximum of six cars taking up what 45 -50 spaces...pull the other one.

Not only this but since the imposition it is clear more cars are now parking on the roads and being far more inconvenient than they were before. Mind you they inconvenience the lorries too which to me is a good thing. But this only goes to show how stupid this car park policy is.

It is even more stupid when the funding of someone to patrol the car park 2 - 3 times a day is taken into account. Maidstone Borough Council are always pleading poverty telling us schools have to close, class sizes increase, social services and police being cut, yet they are able to waste our money on employing a traffic warden that isn't needed. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And finally we come to the most nonsensical part of the whole thing.....the newsletter says that the recycle bins take up valuable parking space and asks for suggestions where to move them. Well, I have a suggestion ... how about moving then into one of the other 40 odd spaces currently not being occupied in the car park!!! Perhaps you should spread them around more to make the car park look more used. Are the parish council really from Marden on this planet??

Cynically though I do wonder if there are other matters afoot here. How long will it be before some town planner realises the car park is no longer used and applies to build on it I wonder. Then not even the dead will be able to park up before their final journey....unless of course they turn up in a lorry who seem to rule the roads in Marden anyway. 

I do hope these views, shared by many in Marden, get to the Parish council and are taken into account (although given this fiasco my confidence in local democracy is very low so I have to say I doubt that they will be). I hope the sign is removed in the very near future and I hope sanity is restored soon.