DAVID Fletcher, in defending the proposed Garden Street development in Hebden Bridge ("Town's future is in parking plan", Your say, February 26) is like a poker player with a pair of deuces: he can only win by bluffing outrageously.
I agree with him that there is a need for additional car parking in Hebden Bridge, but the proposed development is not the answer. The apartments, shops and offices in the plan would soak up nearly all of the additional car parking.
Your editorial on February 14 stated that "Calderdale Council sees it as a means of ending the chronic shortage of parking". The objectors' worry is that if the development is allowed it will take the council three years or more to realise that it was wrong.
During the intervening period the construction phase would cause chaos in the town and great harm to the businesses Mr Fletcher purports to champion.
This is why the objectors, far from being a "small and unrepresentative coterie", are a broad coalition that includes the Calder Civic Trust, the local Labour Party and many ordinary folk spurred into action to try to save the town, supported by Hebden Royd Town Council, by hundreds of residents who have written to Calderdale Council to object, and by a clear majority of the town's traders.
We need to address car parking in the centre of the Hebden Bridge and the best way to do so is by:

• Improving public transport, particularly bus services to the surrounding communities, and better co-ordination between buses and trains.




• Supporting cyclists, with many more cycle lockers and better cycle routes in and around the town.




• Implementing a park-and- ride scheme, with increased car parking at the station and frequent bus links into the centre.

Initiatives like these would not only resolve the car parking issue, they would also help with the air quality problem in the centre of Hebden Bridge.
The levels of nitrogen oxide pollution are more than 20 per cent higher than they should be, and the Garden Street scheme would make it worse.
David Fletcher's suggestion that more station car parking would just take people out of Hebden Bridge is bizarre.
Of course a significant proportion of residents have to travel elsewhere to work. This is why the station car park is full by 7.15 each weekday morning.
The old mills have been converted into apartments, increasing the number of residents and decreasing the number of jobs in the town.
Hebden Bridge does not need even more luxury apartments. It needs flourishing local businesses, affordable housing and successful retailers that serve the needs of residents and tourists.
Ernest Jones