THE future of car parking in Malton and Norton is to be explored by officials of Ryedale District Council and the towns' Initiative Group.

Peter Mudge, the town centre manager, said a meeting is to be held in the next few weeks to investigate options following the decision by RDC to approve the budget for the coming financial year which included a 25 per cent rise in car parking charges.

"I hope our two organisations can work together but the Initiative wants to hear ideas from the public on ways in which they think the provision of parking can be improved as well as the pricing structure," he said.

Also part of the budget measures are the axing two public toilets.

However, no further rises in car parking fees are likely before 2007, it was revealed. The authority agreed a three per cent increase in its council tax for the coming financial year, making the new figure for the average Band D property £157.03 payable to RDC.

The total figure for the band will be £1243.06 - a rise of 4.32 per cent - after North Yorkshire County Council, the county's Fire and Rescue Service and Policy Authority taxes are added.

At the budget meeting, Coun Paul Andrews said RDC should use some of its £8.4 million in reserves towards the £159,000 savings needed to balance the budget and added that the spending of £70,000 on new refuse collection vehicles should be delayed and the excess charge on car parking should be increased from £40 to £45. In addition he wanted further savings by not replacing staff.

Coun Edward Legard believed the 25 per cent rise in parking fees would "not be so great", urging councillors to "keep your feet on the ground".

Coun Wilf Garbutt said Malton and Norton did not have the advantage of such places as Pickering, Thornton-le-Dale, Helmsley and Kirkbymoorside as tourist centres.

He believed RDC should investigate introducing a similar parking

charge to the North York Moors National Park, which had annual tickets that were successful.

Coun John Clark advocated axing RDC's civic dinner, cutting the chairman's allowance, reducing members' allowances, and ending the after-council-meeting drinks to save money, and to keep toilets in Wentworth Street, Malton, and Staxton Hill open.

Coun Robert Wainwright said the council and its committees had debated the coming year's budget for more than six hours before making recommendations.

Coun Keith Knaggs added: "Everything in the budget has been debated two or three times already. The situation is becoming a farce."

The council heavily defeated moves to change the budget proposals.

In a letter to RDC, County Coun Geoff Rennie, chairman of the Malton and Norton Area Partnership, said much had been done to improve the towns' economy but ''at a stroke" an increase in car parking charges would undermine the efforts to promote economic prosperity.

County Coun David Lloyd-Williams had also urged councillors in a letter to rethink the car park charge rise, labelling it as "very ill-judged".

Updated: 15:06 Wednesday, March 09, 2005