You just wanted to spend some of your hard earned cash in the nearest toy store. In Wellington this turns out to be an unreasonable request and you are left circling the CBD like a manic piranha trailing curses for whoever plans (or doesn't plan) our fair city's parking.

I consider myself to be fairly green. I have a yard full of chooks and vegetables and I care about carbon. However I also care about mathematics and valid conclusions and I fail to see how insufficient parking is serving either our businesses, consumers or the planet.

Some people have to use cars. Other people will use cars because they want to and lack of parking will not budge such from padded, warm and relatively inexpensive, compared to public transport, seats. When people are in a car and can't park in Wellington central they eventually give up and drive away. To the Hutt (or Johnsonville if we're lucky) and spend their money there, burning fuel as they go. How much revenue are we losing? How much petrol is used orbiting our downtown? How can we encourage more affordable parking to ensure the physical businesses in our city survive and thrive?

Yes, it's just one issue, but these are the sorts of everyday questions I want our prospective Mayors and proto-councillors to be researching and finding solutions for. Because I want to stay with the optometrist I have frequented since age fifteen, but it is incredibly hard to get near him. Because I really liked that physio in the CBD but she is nowhere near a parking building that ever has any actual spaces. Because I know of organisations that have sworn never to hold evening events in Wellington again.

It's very unscientific, but do a quick mental survey. Have you heard anyone talk about how great our city's parking is in the past year? I suspect not.

And so I invite ideas and comment from our prospective city leaders in the space below. Right now I don't want anyone for Mayor. Convince me.

(Hayley Robinson is a Karori resident, Hutt Valley Science Teacher and mother of three. She is definitely not running for Council.)

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