IT was more carnival than campaign: a parking protest party.

The specially-formed choir belted out a rewritten chorus of On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at while Dick Turpin swaggered about Coney Street demanding, strangely for him, an end to highway robbery.

For all the fun, a serious point was being made to councillors attending the full meeting of City of York Council. The parking tax is harming York.

It is hard to think of another issue in which has caused the mild-mannered city citizenship to remonstrate and demonstrate in such numbers.

Tonight we print another batch of letters from angry readers whose lives have been hit by the new charges. Tourists too are writing in to say that they are reluctantly taking their custom elsewhere.

The cross-section of society affected was colourfully illustrated at yesterday's Guildhall gathering. Local societies, many of which are now planning to abandon the city centre, were represented by the singers. The York TUC stood for the ordinary working people whose incomes are being eroded, and shopkeepers were there to assure council leader Steve Galloway that their drop in takings was real.

The debate inside the chamber was long and passionate, but ultimately generated more heat than light. Coun Galloway said the results of the review of the parking charges would be put before the council on September 28.

By then, however, the summer season will be a memory. Recent hints have suggested that the Liberal Democrats are plotting a parking U-turn: for the sake of York, they should do it now.

Councillors rushed into this policy. There is no reason why they cannot rush out of it.

Updated: 11:21 Friday, July 30, 2004