Sir, - A possible solution to the Hambleton car parking debate could be as follows.

1. The motorist parks in a designated parking bay and pays his parking fee for the period required. A ticket machine provides a split ticket, one half of which he displays in the car, and the other half he takes with him.

2. Provided the motorist spends say £10 at a business in the town, he gets his first hour's parking fee refunded by that business on production of the ticket. The business would pay the council for all the one-hour ticket money say each month.

Parking in excess of one hour would be paid wholly by the motorist.

3. All businesses would be obliged to participate as part of their council tax obligations. It would be an additional cost of doing business in the town, but as businesses are already concerned that they may lose business if charges are introduced, and as the motorist is spending money in their business, they have an incentive to take part.

4. Supermarket car parking would have to be treated the same as council car parking, and there would have to be double yellow lines on some streets to deter on-street parking.

Also regular parkers would have discounted season ticket arrangements.

5. Parking fees could be graduated so that parking in the middle of town, say in a market place, would be the most expensive, while car parks which entail a walk of some distance to town would pay less or perhaps be free. It is dispiriting to go somewhere like Leyburn and be confronted by a sea of cars in the market place. The latter of course is free parking while a council car park some distance walk away charges for parking.

Surely it should be the other way round ?

This ia a pragmatic compromise, variations of which may be in place elsewhere.

DAVID SPARKES Saffron Walden, Essex