Dr Ian Maun, of Teignmouth, writes:

TDC lose £1m parking fees while Teignmouth residents are unable to park. Nobody has a right to park on a street or road. Drivers are allowed by law to travel on the highway, but to park only where there are no restrictions. We all understand this.

In recent years, on-street parking for Teignmouth residents without drives has become almost impossible in the streets above the railway station (Exeter Street, Higher Brimley, Shute Hill, Salisbury Terrace, Heywoods Road, Lower Brimley, and Winterbourne Road, although most residents in the latter have driveways). Workers, visitors and tradesmen have increasingly taken to parking in these roads, understandably to avoid car park charges.

Winterbourne Road and Higher Brimley are becoming increasingly used for the parking of commercial vehicles and camper vans. Buses long ago ceased to run along the latter because it is no longer possible to traverse the double lines of parked cars.

In 2008, Devon County Council, who are responsible for on-street parking, refused a request for a Residents' Parking Scheme for the area, although Exeter and Newton Abbot enjoy such schemes.

As a result of this discrimination against the residents of Teignmouth, the situation has deteriorated to the point of crisis.

Planning permission has now been granted for 21 luxury flats in Winterbourne Road on the site of a now-demolished hotel (apparently on appeal to the Secretary of State for the Environment – so much for the government's much-vaunted 'localism'!)

'No affordable homes', proudly boasts the on-site placard. Presumably there will be one parking space per flat, regardless of the fact that couples in this type of dwelling will almost certainly have more than one car and the overflow will naturally spill into Winterbourne Road and the surrounding streets, where there is simply no space left during the day.

High parking charges and the lack of a park-and-ride scheme from Eastcliff car park mean that incoming drivers use neither this car park nor many others.

Figures obtained under Freedom of Information reveal that Teignbridge Council car parks in Teignmouth have been working at as little as 60 per cent capacity for the last three years, this sum being based on an eight-hour working day. This means that where TDC could have collected £2,460, 872 in parking charges in a year, they actually collected £1,564,183, a difference of nearly £900,000.

Next year, TDC will pass the £1,000,000 mark in such losses, and have probably already done so, but figures for previous years have not been requested.

Effectively, our car parks might as well be closed for two years out of every five, as this is the scale of the losses.

A local out-of-season survey of the Eastcliff car park revealed as few as 20 cars at 9.30am and only 57 by 11.15am. There are 158 spaces in Eastcliff. Meanwhile, of course, residential streets were solid with parked vehicles, and are so throughout the year. TDC need to make long-term parking an attractive option in which lower tariffs are balanced by greater usage of spaces.

DCC have failed to provide residents who lack drives with a parking scheme, forcing local residential tax-payers to become nomads looking for parking spaces while space is taken by motorists who wish to avoid ridiculously high parking charges. DCC thus deprive residents of a necessary amenity, and TDC of hundreds of thousands of pounds, which is in part the reason for cuts to services.

At the same time TDC are also considering closing the car parks in Brunswick Street and on the Point. One can only conclude that our councillors and planning officers have heard of Teignmouth but have never actually visited it.

The absurdity of the situation is apparent. We have two councils working not for the public but against us and against each other, grid-locking our streets and emptying our car parks and our wallets. They were warned of the situation, they failed to act and they are responsible for these staggering financial losses.THIS AND OTHER LETTERS IN OUR DIGITAL EDITION