So, Southampton council, where are our promised 1,000 additional parking spaces?

Here in the Itchen Estate, before the local election, our then councillor was in the early stages of consulting with residents as to possible road alterations (including to Sea Road) as a means to acquire more, much-needed parking spaces.

The good thing with this proposed strategy was decisions wouldn’t simply be imposed from above, without resident input or feedback.

Alas, the Tories electoral contribution was a card promising 1,000 parking spaces – that was the sole sum of their election campaign, with – typically, very much in the Brexit style – no detail, no how, where, when, or cost.

A few months on, and nothing, of course. They got our vote. Now the excuse will be no money in the pot.

Their promises obviously meant nothing. Lack of parking spaces and roads that are too narrow, are the bane of our 1950s/60s housing estates, and need to be resolved, not by pretending we will all start riding bikes or e-scooters, or stand at shelter-less bus-stops in the wind and rain waiting for the half-hourly First Bus to Bitterne….when it turns up.

Having made this an election issue, this is more important than a 60-years-too-late Spitfire Memorial.

Garth Groombridge

Southampton