My wife and I live overseas and we have Maltese and Australian citizenships. We come to Malta annually for three months for family reasons and, like many others in our position, we hire a car for the duration of our visit.

The car is a must because we stay in Sliema and drive daily to visit family members at an elderly citizens' home in Rabat. On enquiry to the Sliema council I was informed that we are not entitled to any concessionary parking rights under the new scheme. Unless the Sliema council is really prepared to address problems as reported in The Times (July 22), we believe the added difficulties in parking a car in Sliema will lead us to not hiring one on our next visit. Consequently, we may even de-cide it is not worthwhile coming to Malta.

Tens of thousands of Maltese living abroad visit Malta in any given year. Collectively we stimulate the economy by tens of millions of euros. Can the market afford a drop in this "hidden" tourism as a result of increased difficulties in parking?

One solution (there are others) is for Sliema and other councils to issue parking permits to "Maltese living abroad" on production of our Maltese passports and travel tickets. I know this discriminates against ordinary tourists but our Maltese passports should count for something.

The Sliema council, the ADT, and even the minister responsible for tourism should take heed of the various criticisms made to the proposed parking scheme.

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