HIGHWAYS bosses have refused to reveal whether motorists are continuing to desert York's car parks.

City of York Council claims it could be "commercially damaging" for it to publish monthly parking revenue figures for June and July.

However, it will happily reveal quarterly statistics later this month.

The Evening Press had requested the June and July information to discover whether the trend in April and May - when income fell by almost five per cent compared to the same period last year - had continued into the summer.

The council revealed in June that revenue at the three short-stay parks at the Castle, Piccadilly and Bootham Row, fell by almost £13,000 in the two months - despite a 20 per cent hike in fees which had been intended to rake in extra funds for the cash-strapped authority. The other "standard" car parks, where fees were frozen, experienced a £30,000 fall in income.

In recent years, the authority has kept council tax rises down through a massive rise in parking revenue - 80 per cent in six years to £6.74 million last year.

But critics have warned that fees may have hit a ceiling, leaving the council unable to rely on further revenue increases in future years.

The council claimed in June that the April/May figures were not comparing like with like because Easter, which always generates a lot of income, fell in March this year. It also said extra people were coming in to the city by Park & Ride instead of their car, reducing congestion and pollution.

Len Cruddas, chief executive of York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, said then that two months was not long enough to come to any firm conclusions.

But after requesting information about June and July, a council spokeswoman responded by saying: "Unfortunately, we are unable to provide this information on the grounds of commercial sensitivity.

"While the figures for April/May were provided, the council is concerned that the 'jigsaw' effect of piecing together information from different months could be commercially damaging."

But she added that the quarterly details for car parking revenue would be presented to members of the Planning and Transport Executive Member Advisory Panel on September 7, with agenda papers out at the end of August.

Asked why monthly figures were commercially sensitive, but quarterly figures were not, she said: "We don't generally monitor monthly parking stats - it's done on an ad hoc basis.

"The commercial sensitivity relates to monthly information about individual car parks."

However, the council's website gives regularly updated information about car park occupancy, and this appears to indicate that numbers are still down.

Updated: 10:17 Wednesday, August 24, 2005