Witney News - Witney parking problem caused by building projects

Witney parking problem caused by building projects

The Witney and West Oxfordshire Gazette leads today (2/11/2005) on a story about parking problems in Witney. The story says that the number of parking spaces has been reduced by the West End Link Road building project and the work being carried out at Sainsburys.
Although extra spaces have been provided at the former Witney Town football ground in Welch Way, shoppers are having to wait up to 20 minutes at times to find a parking space.

A woman from Burwell is quoted as saying that it took her 20 minutes to park and that things are getting worse.

The witney.net view on this
My immediate thought when I read the comments from the Burwell woman was why doesn't she walk into Witney! Burwell is not exactly a million miles from Witney town centre, and if more Witney residents walked into town rather than taking a short drive the car parks would be less busy and the roads less congested.
And the comments about the Sainsburys car park shouldn't really be an issue. As far as I am aware the car park is for people shopping at the supermarket, not for people to park there and then walk into the town centre. I have never been shopping at Sainsburys without being able to park easily, and in my experience the car park that is out of use at the supermarket at the moment is only an overflow carpark which is used by people that use it and then walk into Witney town centre anyway.
I am by no means a tree hugging environmentalist, but we all can see that the roads are geting more and more congested and if people got off their behinds and chose to walk rather than drive into Witney then it would ease congestion..... and probably help the obesity problems we have in this country too!