Madam,

The nameless shop-owner (Letters, last week’s Cambrian News, ‘Ban will hit trade’) gives the impression that Lampeter is so large that people would be too tired to walk from various car parks to the shops in College Street. Lampeter is bijou [small and elegant or jewelled]. I can walk from one end of town to the other in under 15 minutes.

People bypass the Cwmins and Rookery car parks and park on Kingsmead, New Street and Teifi Terrace when they shop in town. Sainsbury’s car park is always busy. Why? Sainsbury’s reimburse most of the car park fee to their customers. So, where they park is not the issue for most people, but rather the problem is that locals will not pay the “exorbitant” parking fees.

We need to get drivers to use all the car parks in town again. I have seen various parking schemes recently in small and medium-sized towns which could work in Lampeter. There could be one hour’s free parking and a small fee for subsequent hours; up to three hours’ free parking; or a small set fee, with no hourly rate, so the customer could park for as long as they wanted.

Any one of these schemes or even a combination of them could stimulate shopping trade for the town. We need to offer and provide something that people cannot get from internet shopping or from going to large out-of-town shopping villages. But the county council must help us, or all other small towns in Ceredigion and our thriving towns could soon wither and die.

Yours etc,

E Heneghan, Lampeter.

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