I HADN'T shopped in Birkenhead for a while.

But having just visited the town for the first time in a long time, I now remember why.

When parking off Market Street in the ghost town of a "business district", I was astounded by what I saw on the pay machine.

£1.05 for an hour, and a machine that offers no change? Seriously?

Which clever clogs in the council thought up that little ruse?

In terms of how contemptuous Wirral Council is towards people who pay for it - think whistleblowers, Lyndale school, turning off the streetlamps, the list goes on and on - I do appreciate that this is small beer.

But it is indicative of the Napoleon-lite prod-noses who gleefully take excessive salaries while treating their paymasters like fools.

Have we not had enough of this yet?

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