INCREASED parking charges seem like yet another example of high Green ideals displaying little common sense (Letters, April 10).

How will this affect trade in the centre of Brighton? Everyone says big supermarkets ruin the High Street: well, maybe they do – one major reason (aside from competitive prices) is that they mostly have free car parks. You try carrying a week’s shopping on the back of a bike.

I’d sooner take a slow drive out to small towns such as Henfield or Steyning, and spend my “parking money” on a spot of lunch.

M Boyask, New Church Road, Hove

HERE are some things I won’t be doing now it will cost me £1 to park for 15 minutes in College Place, instead of 20p: I won’t be donating unwanted items to the Marie Curie charity shop, I won’t be popping into Bedford Hardware for a light bulb or some bin liners and I won’t be popping into Kemp Town Books for a greetings card. In fact, I won’t be popping into any of my local shops. And now that it would cost me £4 to park for 20 minutes in Oxford Place, I won’t be checking out the new Open Market.

The Green Party won’t mind; they’ll be happy to have dissuaded me from using my car for any of the above activities.

However, I have tended to use my car for the above activities when using it for something else, such as taking my mother-in-law aged 92 to the Royal Sussex County Hospital for her pacemaker check or taking my dogs to East Brighton Park to enjoy a walk in Sheepcote Valley.

I would like to apologise to everyone in Brighton and Hove for voting Green.

J Flood-Paddock, Freshfield Road, Brighton

I WENT to Brighton recently with my family – but never again.

The parking fees are an utter disgrace and must be counter-productive for local businesses.

I would have stayed for maybe six or seven hours and spent considerably more money than I did, but no way am I spending that much on parking.

Other coastal towns will benefit from my business (and no doubt many other people’s) in the future.

It is greed combined with stupidity.

Paul Giltname, Worcester Park, Surrey

LONDON ROAD is now charging £3.50 for an hour of parking.

This street is in freefall anyway; the road consists of charity shops, cafes and a few grocery shops. I have sympathy with the owners of these properties; they are struggling as it is.

What is the justification for the huge increase? The council is not encouraging visitors or shoppers into Brighton with its rip-off parking.

M McDermott, Crescent Drive, Woodingdean

“Happy Easter,” we cried on Sunday morning as we headed off to church.

We parked up, got out and noticed the usual parking sign was looking shiny and clean. So we take a look – what? Every week for years parking restrict-ions have applied Monday to Saturday. We, like many others, could park on a Sunday freely and go to church. But now it’s seven days a week until 8pm.

Using a bus would mean getting the family up two hours earlier and waiting for the one bus every half-an-hour.

It looks like we’ll have to find an out-of-town church, depriving a city church of people, thus depriving it of income.

HT Ellis, Westfield Crescent, Brighton