The people of York would be fully consulted before any road charging was introduced in the city, a council leader pledged today.

And Councillor Dave Merrett, deputy leader of City of York Council, said tolls would only come in if present policies were felt to be failing, and they were felt to be an effective solution.

He said a review of the council's success in tackling congestion and pollution was likely to start later this year.

He also stressed that, following yesterday's White Paper, the council would hope to improve public transport in the city, providing extra train stations, better bus services, more park and ride sites and more cycle routes.

Dave Curtis, assistant director of development and transport at City of York Council, said the announcement could lead to more Safe Routes To School projects - a scheme which has already been pioneered in York at Burnholme Community College and Huntington School - more cycle routes and more bus lanes.

York's Labour MP Hugh Bayley is to lobby Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott for the council to be one of 150 local authorities allowed to introduce local transport strategies, giving it the powers to introduce road charges and taxes on workplace parking, with the revenue going towards improving public transport.

In North Yorkshire, county council transport chiefs are still trying to assess the full implications of the White Paper.

Mike Moore, director of environmental services at North Yorkshire County Council, said: "It's really too early to comment. I need to know a lot more about it, but realistically, it's probably more useful to our urban counterparts than to a rural county like North Yorkshire."

But Vale of York Tory MP Anne McIntosh claimed the Government was "behaving like big brother" in penalising car users.

She warned that businesses in city centres will lose out to out-of-town shopping centres if motorists are charged for driving in.

"I am also amazed that the Government should choose to pick on motorists who drive their children to school.

"Every parent will treat with contempt the suggestion that their children should walk or cycle to school. This takes no account of the dangerous world in which we live and persecutes responsible parents."

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