CAR parking charges being introduced at Wellington Monument were this week described as a ‘misguided decision’ which risked undermining local support for the National Trust’s £3.4 million restoration project.

The Trust is shortly to make the monument car park ‘pay and display’ and has already installed a ticket machine close to the interpretation panel.

It said all the money raised from the parking tickets would be put towards the monument’s restoration fund.

But Wellington town councillor John Thorne is asking the Trust to think again and to reverse what he said was a misguided parking charges decision.

Cllr Thorne, who is also a county councillor for Wellington East, said: “This is an extremely crass decision by the National Trust at a time when it has been asking the public to help raise the funds it needs to restore a nationally-renowned monument which it owns and which it has a duty to preserve for the nation.

“It is imposing a tax on local residents who want to enjoy this part of the Blackdown Hills by walking their dogs or going for a picnic, for instance, as generations of people have done for hundreds of years.

“There has been so much goodwill shown by local people so far in supporting the restoration of our much-loved monument despite the Trust refusing to commit enough of its own money to do the job itself."

for the full story see this week’s Wellington Weekly News.