Driven away

Surely, anyone displaying a “wrong” disc will have made a deliberate choice to come to shop in Rustington, rather than in their own locality. It will no doubt have been a pleasant experience, such is Rustington, but these petty rules will ensure they never come back.

This rule defeats its own object – another bureaucracy gone mad situation. I don’t think the signs in car parks make this point clear – probably deliberately.

Be assured, however, that this is the norm around the country nowadays. London boroughs all have a slightly different version of the rules. I know of one street that is the boundary line between two boroughs, where the rules are different, depending on which side of the road you park (and they get their rubbish collected on different days, too!).

I have to carry discs for Evesham and Cheltenham, which I visit occasionally, and Shoreham, Littlehampton, Rustington and Horsham district. The last does have a more reasonable attitude – Horsham discs are valid in any towns in that district – Horsham, Storrington, Steyning, etc. Arun should emulate this.

However, I believe that when Arun first drew up the disc parking rules for Littlehampton, they rather carelessly forgot to include a “Littlehampton only” clause and any disc was valid. But that changed under the new enforcement procedures from July.

I understand that when a parking enforcement officer sees a non-Littlehampton disc nowadays, a warning is left and if a re-offence is seen, a penalty charge will then be imposed. That concession won’t last much longer! One always has to stop, check signs and think, when parking.

John Morris,

Maltravers Drive,

Littlehampton