CAR-owning York residents who live close to the city centre will have to dig deeper this year after increases in parking charges.

City councillors agreed to up the price of a standard residents' permit by 10 per cent to £37.50. The cost of an authorisation card for residents using cheap visitor payments will also go up to £2.

Although the increases were agreed at yesterday's planning and transport committee, concerns were expressed about the effectiveness of the scheme.

Coun Terry Walker said: "I find it very difficult to accept the cost of residents' parking, but I would feel able to go along with it if residents did get better monitoring of their areas."

Bad news was also in store for motoring visitors to York with car parking and park and ride charges set to increase.

Councillors agreed to up ticket costs by between 30p and 50p at medium-stay car parks and 10p for on-street parking after hearing how the minimum increase enforceable was six per cent - due to machines not accepting smaller change.

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