Ode to the parking problems
Decline and Fall
Back in the sixties and seventies
When the motor car first became king
Our councillors, in their great wisdom,
Decided the very best thing
Was to bulldoze flat the town centre;
So without too much thinking at all,
They destroyed half the best bits of
And that was the start of the fall.
They replaced Ann Street with a car park,
Of concrete, and steel and brick
Devoid of all style and merit
But they thought it would be cheap and
quick.
They used parking for years as an "income"
Buried their heads in the sand
Whilst anything "new" or "exciting"
Might just as well have been banned.
They spent not a penny on maintenance
So the car-parks were soon in a state
Whilst in no time, the much-vaunted
Guildbourne
Looked at least twenty years out of date.
At last, when they ran out of options
And the concrete was crumbling and drear,
Some daft idiot from the Lib-Dems
Cried "I've got a brilliant idea."
"We'll sell the whole town down the river
We'll give NCP a quick ring
They'll be delighted to take it all on
And we won't have to do a darn thing.
Don't worry too much about contracts
As beggars we've no right to choose,
We're sure we can trust National Car Parks
And we've really not got much to lose."
They sloped into town as wolves to the fold,
A parasite army in blue
And every shopkeeper with half of a brain
thought
"I'd say that's our lot, wouldn't you?"
They spread through the streets like a fast-
rising flood
Things really could not get much worse
They gave not a jot for the halt or the lame,
Provided they'd emptied your purse
They gave not a fig for the aged
Or those just a tad over time,
Or the young mothers wrestling with
pushchairs
Each one had committed a crime.
Before long, word spread throughout
Sussex,
That Worthing had got too expensive
Shoppers deserted in muttering droves,
And the council began to get pensive...
They know full darn well there's not much they can do
Our poor town one can see's slowly dying,
And if they try to tell me "that's not the case",
Then I'd say to them straight that they're lying.
You reap as you sow, so the old proverb goes,
And our leaders have got little right,
As for the town centre?
Death by Parking, I fear.
Will the last warden turn out the light?
Andrew Lawrenson
Langbury Lane,
Ferring
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