I AGREE with many local residents and businesses that car parking charges in Barry town centre are badly timed and detrimental to any efforts towards regeneration and I believe these charged should be resisted.

I am happy to work with those who have a genuine passion about our town.

I think it's a bit cheeky Conservative Alun Cairns MP campaigning against these charges when it was a Tory Vale of Glamorgan Council which electrified the Knap Front Car park ready for car park meters.

But this is not unusual behaviour for Mr Cairns. He bounced up and down protesting about the proposed new housing at Weycock Cross, but his Tory councillors on planning voted for them.

He became blue in the face over an incinerator on Barry Docks, then all Tory councillors on the Planning Committee voted in favour of it.

He supported a Dinas Powys by-pass in Tory leaflets delivered just before the general election – then all his Tory councillors voted against putting the by-pass in the Local Transport Plans that runs until 2030.

I have tackled Mr Cairns personally on the evidence that, "he says one thing and his Tory councillors do something completely different" only to be told he has no control over them.

When a politician is not supported by his party on this many occasions it is a sign of weakness – he cannot persuade his own party he is right. It’s easy to be in a photo and say what people want to hear, but we shouldn’t be suckered by the politicians that turn up to the opening of an envelope but whose colleagues vote against them.

Cllr Shirley Hodges

Plaid Cymru the Party of Wales

Barry Town Council