Sir – I write as someone who has recently fallen foul of parking restrictions in my part of Oxford.

I paid up — almost cheerfully — because I had not read properly the notice where I left my car though it was registered for the area concerned. In that particular road there are four different types of parking bays.

While I applaud the vigilance of the traffic warden concerned, my only reason for parking where I did was because all other spaces in my road had been taken up by builders with written messages in their vehicles and so I had parked in a road with many available spaces but had not observed the particular restriction on my bay.

At the same time I have watched a number of vehicles ‘dumped’ in my road far exceeding the restrictions and without permits but with few exceptions have they not been penalised.

The need for regulation and control is not in question, but it is the implementation that I am asking to be carried out with some element of discretion.

Raoul Franklin, Oxford