Cllr Bert Biscoe (Independent), Moresk & Trehaverne Ward, Truro

Old postcards of Boscawen Street often show horse-drawn village buses parked down the middle. Public transport and parking have always been essential to Truro’s function and success as a town.

It’s fantastic to see people bringing life and living into our city centre. But while Boscawen Street markets look good, they deter people from using buses which would otherwise stop there.

Meanwhile, the Moorfield car park saga (where nothing has changed since it was mostly closed as a precaution) drags on, while tripper and village buses are squeezed out of the coach park behind M&S by overflow from Transport for Cornwall.

Is Cornwall Council preparing to charge non-bus users £1 for parking at the Park and Rides? How will they be identified? Will the next step be to charging everybody? And while it benefits Treliske Hospital and Truro College, what does P&R do for trade?

Why is this all happening? Incompetence? Ineptitude? Coincidence? Or is somebody deliberately trying to run this town down? If so, why? I abhor conspiracy theories, especially in Truro’s case.

We need decisive action on Moorfield - to demolish or not, and certainly to keep the site for lower deck and ground-level parking; to devote more free Park & Ride space to the town and less to Treliske and Truro College; to provide consistently accessible public transport services into the heart of the city; to cut public transport fare costs. Otherwise, the ability of Truro to sustain that essential economic ecology will wither away.

There’s a basic formula: no trade = no jobs = no tax = no public services = no trade!

Christmas is a key trading period for Truro, its income covering costs through the lean months till Easter. It employs people who keep the town going. Let’s hope this Christmas is merry and profitable.