Good luck trying to park at Boulters Lock

In connection with concerns over dangerous parking near to Battlemead Common, last week’s Advertiser had a headline stating ‘Call to open car park near new path’.

So I typed into Google Maps the words ‘Battlemead Common car park’ and what came up? Boulters Lock Car Park!

And I see Cllr Coppinger must have been on Google Maps too, because he’s advising visitors to Battlemead Common: “If visitors are arriving by car, they can park at

Boulters Lock car park nearby and enjoy the circular walk along the Thames Path to Battlemead Common and back”.

Well, that sounds delightful.

It’s a warm sunny day and you fancy a walk up The Thames to Battlemead Common, why not just park in Boulters

Lock car park?

That is if you can find a space there on a warm summer’s day.

Because, despite Conservative ex-council leader Simon Dudley promising to open the extension a couple of years ago, NOTHING has been done.

Yes, absolutely nothing has been done, because apparently all the cash has disappeared.

Where did it all go? Nobody knows. At least they increased the price for parking there from diddly squat to £1.50 for two hours.

So if they just pull their fingers out, all those additional parkers would be contributing towards the very small cost of opening it up, using Groundtrax type plastic matting as already suggested by the CIC.

It doesn’t even need additional lighting, because it can be closed during the hours

of darkness simply by closing the existing gate in the car park.

But all is not lost because various anonymous council officers have for some time been ‘scoping lower cost alternatives’.

Maybe those alternatives include getting Simon Dudley himself to roll his sleeves up and start digging?

After all, he already dug himself a very embarrassing hole so he might as well keep on digging.

Alternatively, I don’t know if the Scouts still do Bob A Job Week, but that would certainly save the council a lot of money.

So, nobody knows what these ‘lower cost alternatives’ may be.

But perhaps people might, just for once, stop voting on auto-pilot and in next year’s local elections ask themselves why they keep voting for a party that seems unable to manage its finances well enough to provide a simple and much needed car park extension.

Managing to get drunk in a brewery also comes to mind.

MALCOLM JAMES STRETTEN Boulters Lane

Maidenhead