[Gayle]

It's the bigger picture of trying to reduce traffic in the shopping streets. If you have no parking then you don't have people driving around, endangering pedestrians whilst looking for a space.

If you park on Dutton Street then the chances are you've driven along the pedestrian area which is supposed to be traffic free.

As for the car park, that's a different matter and I don't think the discs are a particularly good idea. People lose them or can't get one or forget - much better to have a ticket system of some sort i.e. collect a ticket as you go through a barrier then have traffic wardens going around fining people who stay longer than 3 hours and you wouldn't need a barrier for exiting. Could still keep free parking. It's probably down to cost though i.e. cost of replacing tickets vs cost of printing discs.