Rother council can learn from the French about how to make tourists welcome

On a recent trip to Boulogne in France, we had to park our car.

So I used a public car park and went to the pay machine, which was just like the ones Rother Council have recently installed in their car parks.

I had to type in my car registration number, to stop me giving any unused time on my ticket to someone else. No problem there, but the surprise was that the machine had been programmed to recognise that my registration number was not a French one and so it gave me two hours free parking.

What a pleasant surprise I thought. I wonder whether Rother would adopt the same policy to encourage the foreign tourists we so need in our local economy and thereby make them feel so much more welcome.

I also mused whether free parking for UK visitors to Boulogne may cease after 29 March 2019.