Last updated 05:39, Friday, 04 July 2008

THE plans will make motorists’ eyes water, prompt fierce debate over their wisdom in timing and renew concerned scrutiny of Carlisle’s hopes for growth, development and future prosperity.

The cost of parking a car in Carlisle city centre could rise to £15 or £20 a day if a park and ride scheme is introduced.

A Carlisle Renaissance study says charges need to triple to persuade motorists to leave their cars on the edge of the city and travel in by bus.

In other words, car users should be priced off the road and out of the centre. That’s unlikely to be welcomed universally.

Even the city’s principal bus operator Stagecoach has gasped at the proposals. The company’s operations manager points out park and ride works best where there are continuous bus lanes and the narrow arterial roads in Carlisle rule those out.

Only last month an investigation into the feasibility of introducing park and ride in Carlisle cast serious doubts as to its suitability.

An experimental Christmas pilot scheme showed low take-up by shoppers and commuters.

And it’s hard to see how, faced with the choice of paying £20 for a day in Carlisle or going elsewhere, most people wouldn’t decide to drive on.

Densely populated urban conurbations manage to coax drivers out of their cars well enough if they are blessed with cheap, efficient, frequent bus services in and out of their centres.

Carlisle is not such a choked city – for which many are thankful – and there isn’t a hope of bus routes reaching all the scattered communities looking to this city as their hub.

The report suggests that if Renaissance has the desired effect of growing Carlisle, attracting more residents and visitors, a £20 a day or £2.20 an hour parking fee will become an increasingly attractive prospect.

As a tool for sending those people away again, perhaps? Or sacrificing city centre businesses to out of town shopping malls?

How much sense does that make?