IT seems that Alice in Wonderland is alive and living in Oxford, along with such friends of hers as the Mad Hatter, the Dormouse, Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

I am referring to the county council, whose latest mad idea is to raise the cost of parking permits in Oxford because the schemes are losing £100,000 a year. If the controlled parking zones are not self-financing, why on earth did councillors set them up in the first place – and why don’t they do away with them altogether?

They wasted large amounts of our council taxes on proposing, or setting up controlled parking in such areas as East Oxford, Blackbird Leys and north Summertown, even though in most cases the majority of residents neither wanted nor needed these schemes.

The council squandered money on employing consultants and going through the motions of insincere “consultation”, which they usually ignored.

County council leader Keith Mitchell says that they need to save millions of pounds, so why don’t they make a start by scrapping all these expensive parking schemes?

And, incidentally, if the council is in such dire economic difficulties, that is surely a sign that it has not been spending our money wisely in the past.

Mr Mitchell is saying that 1,000 jobs at County Hall should go. Councillors could set everyone an example by handing in their resignations.

Tony Augarde, Carlton Road, Oxford