sir – The council’s desire to make more money from parking tickets does not match its managers' hope that motorists will take more care to ensure that their tickets are well displayed, to reduce their risk of penalty.

However, what is fundamentally wrong with this drive for money is that it affects equally people who do not buy a ticket and those who do, but have had the ticket blown away from the dashboard when the car is closed.

The council says that being lenient costs them £20,000 a year, but that can hardly be true if over 40 per cent of drivers are subsequently able to show a valid ticket after appealing. They have paid but get no credit for their honesty.

Can the council now show its own honesty by halving the penalty charge for people who actually have a parking ticket? Let the punishment fit the crime, as Gilbert and Sullivan said over a century ago. Progress shouldn’t be backwards, councillors!

G Parsons

Malvern