The ongoing debate about parking schemes for residents in Sliema and in other localities highlights the sometimes conflicting interests of the residential and business communities.

There is another, somewhat hidden, plight being faced by residents in other localities. Some local councils seem to have decided to fund their operations from parking tickets.

There was a time when I believed that the local warden scheme was in essence a good thing. Today, bitter experience has shown that it is being abused by the local councils, the operators and the wardens themselves.

Residential roads, and by this I mean roads that serve no purpose other than to connect homes with main roads, are almost exclusively used by residents or their guests to come home and park their cars for the night. What sense is there in applying strict rules at every corner with five metres of yellow lines everywhere?

I live in Triq Cassarino, Qawra. In the four roads surrounding the cul-de-sac where I live, there are no fewer than 20 parking spaces lost to this ridiculous application of yellow paint. These yellow lines serve no purpose except to reduce parking spaces for residents, forcing them to either park "illegally" or to park some 500 metres from home on a main road in front of the cinemas in Buġibba, where their cars are frequently vandalised.

Of course, I have also been faced with this choice and rather than find my car with footprints all over its body, windscreen and ceiling, I opt to park on one of these yellow lines. In the three times that I have been forced to do this (every night there are at least four residents forced to do this) I have woken up at 7 a.m. to look for another parking space.

The wardens make a daily trip at 7.30 a.m. to slap tickets onto cars that are obstructing no one (the roads are wide enough for two cars to pass even with cars parked over all the yellow lines) and ring the cash registers for their employers and the council.

This can only be described as institutionalised harassment. The local council is there to serve the needs of us residents and not to line its own pockets and to use our desperation to fund other projects that allow this or that mayor to snip a ribbon and get his picture in the press.

I appeal to our council to come and have a five-minute walk with me and I will show them how unreasonable the markings are. I urge them to speak to their electors in our area and they might understand the difficulties that their little pot of yellow paint has caused.