I FEEL I must write in response to Colin Pipe’s letter, entitled ‘Badges there for older folk’, which appeared in the Echo on July 19.

I personally took great offence at Colin Pipe’s comments regarding the placement of parent and child spaces, inferring that the allocation of these spaces are for parents who are too lazy to walk and “have become accustomed to their children being a passport to the front of every queue”.

I have two children under three years old. In comparison with the majority of children, my children are extremely well behaved, calm and pleasant children (and as a teacher, I do know what I’m talking about).

They are however, small children and they do have their off days, tantrums, tiredness, mood swings, irregular feeding cycles etc, and as such it is not always as simple as popping them in and out of car seats and getting buggies in and out of the car.

My husband works rather long hours so very often it is left to me to do the shopping alone – the children and parent and child spaces are a godsend. I don’t have to struggle to find a space and after shopping can navigate a simple path to my car, pack it and exit the car park with ease.

I am extremely offended at being branded too lazy to walk under what can sometimes be testing circumstances and I am very angry at this man for accusing me and parents like myself of using my children to ease my own laziness. Clearly Colin Pipe has never been shopping with small children in his entire life. I would dearly love to see him try.

Oh, and before I’m accused of ganging up on a disabled person, let me just add that both my parents and my mother in-law are disabled, so I completely understand and support the need for plentiful disabled parking spaces as well.

What really needs to be done is for the companies that administer the car parks to take appropriate action against the truly lazy people who take up disabled and parent and child spaces because they can’t be bothered to park a row or two away for fear that they may have to walk further, get wet, run late for their next appointment or whatever selfish reasons they have.

I have complained bitterly about this at a great number of places (mainly supermarkets) but I have been fobbed off and treated so dismissively that I am forced to save my time and energy and focus on the task in hand instead.

EMMA FEWINGS, Dragoon Way, Christchurch