SO THAT we’re all clear, let’s examine the logic behind the Environment Department’s latest idea for paid parking.

It’s a £26 annual charge aimed specifically at paying for the road transport strategy.

That strategy seeks to ease congestion on island roads – more specifically in and around Town, where most of the congestion occurs.

Yet the £26 charge applies equally to Mrs Le Page, who visits Town twice a year for the sales, and Mr Ozanne, who drives a mile to Town every single working day.

So it’s a charge that seeks to pay for a scheme to cut Town traffic – but does nothing to cut Town traffic.

Perhaps logic was too kind a word.

Having abandoned road tax in favour of fuel tax on the principle that the polluter should pay, Environment has refused to make the parker pay. Instead it wants a new form of parking tax, universal to all who use a car.

Except it isn’t.

Those with private parking spaces in Town – and that may include States employees and deputies – could, in theory, avoid the charge by never parking in a public car park.

The same will not be true, of course, of the tourist who brings his car over for a long weekend and finds himself liable to a £26 charge for the privilege of parking.

On this point Environment imagines some form of eBay bartering system evolving where parking clocks trade like post-war ration cards.

If that sounds ridiculous, it pales beside the prospect of husband and wives sharing one clock to save money. How long will it be before the wife makes an extra car journey into Town to drop off the parking disc to the husband who forgot it?

In an ever-expanding pantheon of daft States ideas this one could be destined for eternal greatness.

Paid parking will never be popular. But if it has to come in some form to pay for a better environment and cheaper buses, at least give it a chance of persuading motorists to use that public transport.

This is just a road tax in a poor disguise.