WITH reference to the story "Who Owns This Piece Of Land?" (March 13), what the council spokeswoman does not say is that even if the council owned the land it would do nothing about it.

All over York cars are parked on grass verges. In the Holgate area the verges look more like mud flats than grass. When I raised this subject at the recent ward meeting I was told the police actually encouraged parking on verges so that the flow of traffic on the road was uninterrupted.

The only suggestion from my local councillors was to spend thousands of pounds out of the ward budget to put wooden posts up in some places.

Why not introduce a by-law prohibiting the practice all over York? This would cost a lot less and occasional policing would even lead to increased revenue from fines. Not only do cars park on the verge, they sometimes encroach on to the footpath causing damage which has to be repaired using council tax money. After the repairs the cars come back again causing more damage leading to further repairs.

This practice is also ignored by our council. It would rather increase council tax and cut services instead of monitoring the situation and budget accordingly.

A P Cox,

Heath Close,

Holgate, York.

Updated: 09:38 Thursday, March 16, 2006