THE NEW council administration says it is hoping to increase the council’s contribution to the Access York project in this year’s and next year’s budget.

Coun James Alexander, new Labour leader of City of York Council, said he will meet finance chiefs at the end of June to discuss a number of changes to the 2011/12 budget set by the Liberal Democrats before the election.

He said he was not sure how much money they would be able to put forward this year, but said Access York was one of their priorities, after being told by Whitehall that the council needed to make a bigger commitment to the scheme.

Coun Alexander said Labour supported the “vital” Get York Moving campaign by The Press, which is pushing for Government funding to replace the Park & Ride at Askham Bar and to build news ones at Clifton Moor and near the A59 at Poppleton, after the city missed out on £23 million of Government funding last year.

“It will help us with our congestion in York which is vital for us building the economy,” he said.

The council will submit a fresh funding bid this year and Coun Alexander said he was acting on advice from the Government by increasing the council’s contribution by almost £300,000.

He said: “We proposed in February that we increase the contribution to the Access York scheme from the council to £500,000.”

The council decided in February to commit £203,000 to the project in the 2011/12 budget, but rejected the Labour proposal to increase the council’s contribution to £496,000 over two years.

Coun Alexander said if Labour proposes its alternative budget at the next full council at the end of June, this could increase the contribution to Access York because Labour now has a working majority to see its plans through.

Coun Alexander said: “I wrote to all the cabinet, shadow cabinet and Yorkshire MPs and had a response from Norman Baker, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, who said that basically councils are going to up their contribution.”

Mr Baker said a key part of success in resecuring this funding would be for “local authorities to reduce the cost of their schemes and their funding request to the Department”.