Why would tourists visit a dead and decaying town?

Wait a minute, though. There are no such fees presently, so how does reduced new ones present a saving?

At the same time, the department relishes an opportunity to suggest these new fees will cause a shortfall in expected revenue, which must be very disappointing for them and will inevitably have an impact on overall transport strategy, including paid parking. This sounds like a thinly-veiled threat from a spoiled brat about to throw toys out of the pram. I love the last line of the statement which says proposals due to be debated in January's States meeting will come into force from 1 March.

Oh, really? So if the proposals are coming into force, why bother to debate them? (Sorry, I realise they need to at least appear to be earning their keep by debating decided conclusions).

The entire transport strategy as I see it, and while I'm still not being taxed for having an opinion, is a hugely expensive pig's ear of mismatched ideas and can never become a silk purse, especially not under present management. The whole thing is quite clearly aimed at gathering pennies from the already over-taxed poor, probably for funding of yet more studies by independent experts.

I never before imagined the much maligned pig could have so many bad ears.

St Peter Port as a vibrant hub of the community is already on its last legs. There's really not so much reason to go there any more unless you need a mobile phone or exotic coffee or have some desire to binge-drink and no repulsion for loutish behaviour or vile language. And anyway, everything you might need or desire is not available in Town any longer because so many shops have ceased trading due to exorbitant rents and failure of the States to support them in challenging off-island owners who pay only token tax. In fact, everything one might need can be found on the internet, and since our town has become so completely uninteresting as a shopping centre and is so visibly surviving only just, it needs a boost of some kind, a kick up the backside, a serious effort to revitalise it.

Perhaps a counter-attack against those who closed the Markets and destroyed St Peter Port in all the truly local vibrancy and enthusiasm it once had. A meeting place where hundreds of people gathered every Saturday morning to shop in the market or just exchange gossip – a place of friendship and true local harmony and there were even public toilets then, but their absence now, or any replacement anywhere near, is yet another reason for folk to stay away. No doubt it would surprise the States to know that many more people than they imagine need to tinkle quite regularly and are therefore denied access to St Peter Port central for that reason alone.

Everyone imagined redeveloping the Markets would include much-needed updating of the subterranean toilets, but that didn't happen. Conveniences were paved over and vanished as though they'd never existed and were no longer required since the public were more able in modern times to control their bladders, or for some reason never explained, though obviously concerned with money from the developers.

I love the idea of statues on those plinths overlooking Church Square, but aside from dignitaries who may gather on the day of unveiling, who is going to see them? Will it be locals visiting HMV and intent only on video, tweet, Twitter etc, or visitors from cruise ships who, having progressed thus far, may be in need of a loo and will not find one in the vicinity or any sign to direct them to the nearest and most awful facility in modern Europe at the bus terminus. At least it provides relief for those able to find it, but if those who relieve themselves are accustomed to any form of cleanliness or controlled environment, they will be very severely shocked. Add baby-change and disabled access to this equation and you have absolute failure to provide the type of facility expected rightfully in every modern town throughout Europe and provided, but not in St Peter Port. Oh sure, the States will respond by saying those facilities are available. Have you seen them? A disgrace to humanity in our age.

We want tourist money and even speculate about vast sums being spent to accommodate cruise ships, yet without any suggestion of providing thousands of visitors with toilet facilities even close to 20th century. We complain about vandalism but do nothing to address it, like perhaps providing clean and unintimidating facilities with permanent staff to supervise them, as is done in every civilised location throughout Europe, while Guernsey maintains stinking, medieval bogs.

Locals have to use them too, which I suspect is another reason for staying away from Town, because nobody wants to share facilities with not-so-congenial persons inhabiting the bus terminus on a regular daily basis. I'm not making any condemnation of those less-than-fortunate people, since they too are victims, sharing a public convenience because there is nowhere else to go. So they use it as a place to inject substances, to shelter from weather while drinking and to indulge in language and behaviour a tour-cruiser or visiting student might well find threatening.

There's no right or wrong in this awful situation as it stands. The visitor should be protected from things like this and the perpetrator should have help quite obviously not provided. Two wrongs will never make one right, but no apparent effort is being made by anyone to address the situation.

I personally find it appalling and believe it is attributable to one cause alone. The States of Guernsey care only about income and its members have no desire to advocate anything that might rock the boat.

So what might we do to attract more people into Town, where shops are fewer than we were once accustomed to and available goods to buy were far more varied? A town where we had a market, a place of trading in fish, meat, poultry, vegetables, all fresh and almost as alive as the banter of trader and customer. Yet the States, in their wisdom, chose to shut it down and in doing so closed the heart of a community.

Today, having given that heart away for money, they seek to re-energise our town and the best idea they can come up with, generated by civil servants who spend entire lives warming a chair with their bottoms, is to introduce paid parking. Pay to park for what? Shopping opportunities are few, the town is dismal and uninviting, there's nothing at all to entice and toilet facilities are an absolute disgrace to the modern world. Pay to park? No thanks. I'll never go there again and suspect many others will feel the same. So that's the end of St Peter Port except for binge-drinking, drugs and antisocial behaviour (is that taxable?).

This new pensioner has finally been tipped over the edge and will not own a vehicle in Guernsey again, nor in fact even live here any longer. I've done a study of my own, privately funded, and have come to a conclusion that Guernsey is no longer affordable as a place to live and with GST looming, the trend is downward.

Not wealthy at all, I have only meagre savings but based on those can afford a better standard of living in France, where I intend to buy a vehicle in excess of 1,901mm just because I can do it without being charged £2,400 for its width and can tax and insure it more cheaply than at home, while also enjoying cheaper fuel and less costly almost everything without being threatened by thinly disguised squeezing of my shallow pocket in the form of GST.

Not a choice a born and bred local wanted to make, but a complete no-brainer as opposed to being screwed by the States of Guernsey for however long I have left.

No personal details, in case the States impose a tax on emigrating (oops, shouldn't suggest it) but once it's done, I'll send photos of a large, second-hand 4x4 costing at least £2,400 less than at home. Probably take the photo with the backdrop of a market, where even the suggestion of GST would result in reintroduction of Madame Guillotine.

There's a thought for Guernsey, too, since surely imposition of tax not only on goods, but also on the cart transporting them to market, cancels the value of both?

Name and address withheld.