[Madhatter]

What you've just said spuggie is that its not the traffic wardens keeping people away from the town but decent parking facilities. If you've got a street where half of it can be safely turned in to on street parking half hour bays then yes I agree, but if you don't have control, you end up with cars everywhere, every street will have parked cars on it.
Here the council controls the car parks, and tickets cars, but no one controls the streets so the safest place to park is on the double yellows, or the no waiting box.
It ruins the town, creates a cluttered feel to it, can reduce traaffic flow, block emergency vehicles, ambulances etc, can be dangerous for people crossing the road, and footpaths can get obstructed.
When I was there last I parked a mc donalds, it was the only car park I could see.
edit
There ya go, micks posted exactly my point while I was writing that. You'd have that all over if you didn't have them. Don't expect people to use common sense when parking cyfer, cos they don't