Brian Ralfe (Opinion, May 10) has misunderstood the nature of Brighton and Hove City Council staff's dispute with their employer over car parking.

This is not about a few staff wanting to keep free parking for their own convenience.

Many staff have to use their cars on council business throughout the working day in order to maintain services to the community and to help maximise council revenues.

What the changes mean is that those staff will now have to pay the council up to £500 a year for doing this, which is patently unfair.

Unison had been in detailed discussions with the council about the whole range of staff transport issues and has put forward a number of ideas for reducing work-related car use (such as using pool cars, more financial incentives for cycle use and introducing more flexible ways of working to reduce car dependency).

This work was completely short-circuited when a group of councillors decided to impose on-street parking charges without any consultation with their workforce (in breach of their statutory obligations). This is why we are in dispute.

Interestingly, the council's own surveys suggest a higher-than-average number of council employees already travel to work in environmentally-friendly ways (car sharing, public transport, cycling and walking).

The same surveys show that our much-derided "perk" of a free bus service accounts for 20 per cent of all workplace journeys.

These would, in all probability, have otherwise been undertaken by car, adding to congestion, pollution and costs to the council.

-Andy Richards, chairman, Brighton and Hove Unison, Town Hall, Brighton