In the good old days of the parking disc we had one and a half hours parking in the Market Place and I yearned for some short-term parking in Devizes. Then, bless the powers that be, who introduced an hour’s parking in the Market Place, and still I had to search high and low for a short-term parking place.

Am I the only one who was happy when they introduced just half an hour parking in the Market Place? But guess what, I still have to circle the Market Place like a vulture stalking its prey waiting for somewhere to park!

Now, I know I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but by my simple reckoning, from the days of the parking disc, is that there are three times as many people using the short-term parking in the Market Place. Let’s say there were 150 spaces taken up in the disc days over the course of an hour-and-a- half. Under the current system 450 cars are allowed to use the same parking spaces, which they do, and I still struggle to find a place to park short-term.

In my ideal world I would like to drive down to the Market Place just like they do in the Midsomer Murders and the respectful bobby would doff his cap to me and wish me well as I parked without thought outside the shop I wished to visit, then maybe have tea and scones or a pint of beer before heading off back home for a zizz in the summer house.

In this fantasy world I can park for as long as I like and where I like. Sadly, life ain’t like that.

Can I therefore put the cat amongst the pigeons and advocate that we have 20-minute parking that is vigorously enforced?

There are obviously more people who would like to park short term in the Market Place than the existing system allows for. If instead of reverting to an hour of parking, parking was limited to twenty minutes, 675 cars would be able to use the available ‘guesstimate’ of 150 spaces. If we revert to an hour of parking only, just 100 cars would be able on average per hour in the Market Place.

As they say in America, "Do the Math." Devizes has grown considerably since I arrived here in the early seventies. I love the place and the people in it. Lots more people live and work here than in the olden days when I could drive down the Brittox in my Morris Traveller. The town’s population has exploded since those days, so let’s try and think of ways forward on the parking issue rather than backward.

Peter Fletcher, Kempsfield, Devizes.