Pavement parking ban

SIR – I’m the Conservative county councillor for St Margaret’s and Westgate Division in Ipswich. There are a high percentage of narrow, terraced, Victorian streets in my patch.

Most households have at least one car that has to be parked half-way up the pavement on each side of the road – otherwise there wouldn’t be enough room for single-file traffic to pass. There are no passing places because the cars are tightly parked on both sides of the road (on the pavement), so cars meet head on and both drivers refuse to reverse. It’s tense.

However, try banning pavement parking and the roads would be impassable (“Pavement parking should be scrapped or net zero drive will fail”, report, May 18). Tell people they can’t park in the streets near their home and there will be riots (in Ipswich at least).

Who has the right effectively to tell hard-working, tax-paying voters that they shouldn’t own a car? If the Tories try this they can watch their voters desert them en masse. The impact of partygate will be as nothing to this. Debbie Richards

Ipswich, Suffolk