Sir, Since South Lakeland District Council decided what a jolly good idea it would be to employ an army of traffic wardens to prowl around Windermere and Bowness and to limit our parking to a ridiculously stingy 30 minutes, I must have lost half a stone.

It is absolutely impossible to do a family shop and run errands in 30 minutes.

I'm a busy lady and where shopping and spending money are concerned I do not hang about, believe me.

These silly restrictions have obviously been imposed by a well-meaning but nave chap sitting behind a desk in Kendal who has someone else (probably his wife) buying his pork chops, filling his freezer and taking his suits to the cleaners.

I am a local, I pay rates, taxes and lord knows what else.

I certainly have no intention of parking in a pay and display car park and hiking half a mile to buy a pint of milk and a packet of Tampax.

I want to give my business and my money to local shops and suppliers and I expect to be able to park outside, or else pretty close to, those very same shops and suppliers.

I am not inclined to work up a sweat on my upper lip heaving bags full of fruit and vegetables, meat, lightbulbs, cans of paint, newspapers, magazines, stationery, toiletries, or rugs, quilts, clothes for cleaning and a multitude of other things, up and down Broad Street to the car park, that's always providing you can park when you get in there.

I expect to be able to walk out of the shop, load up my car and move on to the next job.

All this, I can assure those who do not involve themselves much in the day-to-day running of a home and/or small business, can take considerably longer than 30 measly minutes.

Try the bank on a Friday afternoon, or the post office on pension day; bingo, there's your 30 minutes gone on a single mission.

Nor do I wish to carry an alarm clock in my pocket set for 25 minutes to remind me its time to scuttle back to the car, move it, and cruise around in circles looking for another spot before I can finish what I have to do.

I suggest that SLDC reviews its plans before we locals get well and truly fed up and take our business up to Booths or, heaven forbid, to Kendal.

That would put our hard-working shopkeepers and caf owners out of business in no time.

Louise Broughton, Bowness