Given the current climate of mistrust of over-zealous parking wardens, I thought readers would be interested to see these photos.

In the words of the warden: "Knock yourself out you f******* tosser. If you look round the front you can take a photo of my waiver, I can park where I f******* like."

To be honest, I'm not too upset about the swearing - no doubt wardens put up with enough abuse.

What is interesting is that the warden was parked on double-yellows on the entrance to a junction off Church Road, Hove.

These lines are to prevent parking for two important reasons - access and visibility.

The van is reducing access for vehicles such as fire engines and ambulances and reducing the visibility for road users and pedestrians alike, which is very dangerous.

This is ample evidence that the NCP-contracted parking wardens have no interest in public safety.

It is easy to see why residents are becoming frustrated. We pay a lot of money for permits and council tax and if you live and work in Brighton and Hove you have very little choice but to pick up parking tickets, despite doing your best to avoid it.

It would be interesting to see the proportion of residents/non-residents who are issued tickets.

I'm prepared to bet £30 (increasing to £60 in 14 days) that residents are bearing the brunt of this ill-disguised taxation.

Would it be unrealistic to hope for an equally pedantic attitude towards benefit fraud, councillors' expenses and car tax fraud?

May I take this opportunity to reassure readers West Sussex County Council is fighting hard to reduce the council tax burden on residents.

Readers will remember that last year the council received a very poor financial settlement from the Government, which resulted in a substantial council tax rise.

We don't know yet how much money the Government will give us for next year's budget but we're not optimistic.

We are very conscious of the problems caused by high tax rises, particularly for people such as pensioners on fixed incomes, and are anxious to do what we can to protect them.

That is why we are proposing that council tax increases for pensioners should be capped in line with inflation.

Government is saying it has increased funding to local authorities. What it isn't acknowledging is it has also increased the tax burden.

It's very much a case of smoke and mirrors.

This year the effect on West Sussex County Council is £11 million in more taxes, which includes increased National Insurance contributions and aggregate tax.

What we're suggesting is that Government should give us back these taxes. We could then use this money to keep down the council tax burden for pensioners.

West Sussex has a greater proportion of over-60s than the national average - around 200,000 (25 per cent of the county's population).

I have written in the strongest possible terms to Local Government Minister Nick Raynsford pointing out the impact of centrally imposed taxes.

The current situation is a funding "merry-go-round" of giving with one hand while taking with the other.

I will be asking him for a rebate sufficient to allow us to fund proposals to protect pensioners.

-Henry Smith, leader, West Sussex County Council