I drive westwards along New Road and it looks like Kendal has died and its heart has been ripped out. Anyone visiting Kendal from the north for the first time will think Kendal has closed down.

Now surrounded by gigantic, ugly boulders, what was the New Road car park for decades just needs the tumbleweed to come blowing across to make people realise this is no longer a place to stop and feel welcome.

Our common land is being violated and in the meantime it's killing Kendal's spirit.

Where do driving visitors to Kendal park in the evening - Dowker's Lane and risk walking up a dark alley to get to the town? Do we seriously want to close Kendal in the evenings?

There are so many unanswered questions about the closure of Kendal people's common land. If the safety report was causing sleepless nights, why keep it from the public view for five months? Why create a riverside walk at the cost of losing another with its resident wildlife? (Beezon Fields).

If it's illegal to park there why has no-one been arrested in the 50 years since my family started parking there?

If it's uninsurable and dangerous why not make it safer and erect disclaimer sign?

Why can't we have a democratic vote for all electors on the electoral roll within the Kendal parish?

The options would be:

1. Probably cheapest option: Keep Kendal's common land for parking, erect disclaimer signs and make the access and egress from the land safer. Risk can never be totally but it can be reduced. Spend the taxpayers' money currently being spent on legal fees on a safety advisor.

2. Probably most expensive option: Change the Kendal common land to a green space area - the current cost of £438,000 plus the cost of making another free car park else where and destroying other riverside land

3. Probably middle expense but will eventually lead to a profit for SLDC: Decommission the land so it is no longer Kendal common folk's land, create a managed car park (fewer parking spaces), initially free but, as this cannot be locked into the future, charges will inevitably be applied within a few years.

I want the New Road car park to remain as it but if the majority don't, I will be happy to accept that, so South Lakeland Introit Council please ask your electorate what they want by allowing us to vote.

J. Garnett

Kendal