IN RESPONSE to the letter by R Cariss, I would like to share my experience of visiting Mothercare World at Clifton Moor.

This being the only Mothercare in York, and knowing the store is full of parents with babies and children in pushchairs, I cannot understand why there are only three 'parent and child' parking bays.

These are opposite the store. Immediately outside the store's front door are three disabled bays, which are usually empty.

When you realise you cannot park near the store, you have to drive past yet more disabled parking bays, 20 to be precise. Most of these are empty except for the usual illegal parkers and one or two people loading heavy TVs into their cars from the adjacent Comet store.

Once past the empty disabled bays, you follow the arrows to the middle and park. Then, armed with pushchair, you have to get through the maze of vehicles. We found ourselves having to walk down the main road to get to Mothercare, not wishing to knock the wing mirrors off cars.

I agree with R Cariss that 'parent and child' and 'disabled' should share the bays. But, and this is a little more extreme, abusers of the parking system should return to find theirs cars crushed into a cube. That way I could get my pushchair around them.

Andrew Sheard,

Severn Green,

Nether Poppleton, York.

Updated: 09:42 Tuesday, January 25, 2005