I read with increased alarm and anger about the Department of Infrastructure’s plan to ban vans and motorhomes from all but selected streets and areas.

What madness is this?

Who is the DoI to dictate to road tax-paying insurance-paying people that they may not park outside their house simply because they have no drive way or it is too short to fit the vehicle (as mine is).

Surely such a far-reaching law should be put out to public consultation and then debated in Tynwald where I was under the impression our laws were made?

There are consequences to this type of ban in that folk will learn where the ‘ban free’ streets are and they will become a parking lot for displaced vans etc.

House prices will be affected in both van-free and enabled van streets as it will affect who buys there and motorhome owners will find their vehicles impossible to sell unless at a loss.

It has already been brought up by one council that it may make tourists feel unwelcome but they stupidly add that they would ‘reluctantly’ go along with the ban. What? Why? If you don’t agree say so instead of kowtowing to some ‘blue sky thinking’ bureaucrat who dreamed up this latest bit of dictatorship and seems to be sliding it in by stealth without proper planning or consideration.

This is an erosion of a civil liberty by another name and the Manx residents should recognise it for what it is before it’s too late.

Why not restrict the length of vehicles such as motorhomes able to come to the island but allow those already registered here to be exempted?

But this proposal by the Department of Infrastructure should be resisted at all costs. Write to your MHKs about it folks and don’t allow a government department to sleepwalk you into this crazy restriction or else what is next?

Name and address supplied

This letter was first published in the Isle of Man Examiner of August 29.

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