If you ever needed a measure of our dependency on the car, you only need to look at the parking desperation we now see on our streets and the volume of traffic on our busy roads.

Many junctions are impossible to get out of due to the number of passing vehicles, narrow streets require delicate negotiation because of parked cars either side and finding a free, empty space near the town centre is like striking oil.

As much as we need better regulation such as double yellow lines, residents permits and new signs, this will only ever plays at the fringes of a much bigger problem.

Our towns cannot cope because they were simply not built to accommodate this amount or this size of traffic and successive Governments have failed to come up with the answer.

When Barrow’s layout was being designed all those years ago, the town planners of the time did not have a crystal ball.

They never foresaw a future where more people than ever could afford and rely on a car in the way they now do today. They did not factor in that some families would own more than one and that we would all need to park close to where we work.

It is all very well lecturing people about parking or car use, or hoping to convert them to walking, cycling or bus use, but the reality is that a catch-all, alternative has not yet been found.