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Tories to end out-of-town free parking
By Graeme Wilson, Political Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:15am BST 11/09/2007

Shoppers using out-of-town supermarkets would be forced to pay car parking charges under new Conservative proposals to defend the traditional British high street.

Under the plans, councils would be given the power to demand that big supermarkets and other stores on the outskirts of towns charge their customers for parking.

The proposals - which are contained in the party's quality of life policy review that will be published on Thursday - are likely to face a backlash from shoppers, who have grown accustomed to free parking at the out-of-town supermarkets and shopping complexes. The 800-page report tries to deflect the inevitable criticism by stressing that the parking charges would be no greater than the amount people would pay in the nearest town centre.

The policy review group, which was co-chaired by Zac Goldsmith, the millionaire environmental campaigner, and John Gummer, the former Tory environment secretary, added that the money raised by the new charges would be used by the local authority to fund improved public transport.

The proposal emerged as David Cameron, the Conservative leader, pledged yesterday that his party would impose new "green taxes" in an attempt to encourage people to cut the amount of carbon they produced.

He said the money raised would be used to reduce taxes in other areas.

"With my government, any new green taxes will be replacement taxes, not new stealth taxes," he said in a speech to the London School of Economics.

"That is the right direction for the environment and it's the right direction for our economy. It is the best way to deliver the green growth that must be our aim."

Mr Cameron argued that a new approach was needed after a decade during which "the poorest in our society have got poorer … social mobility is falling.

"Some estates in Britain have a lower life expectancy than the Gaza Strip."

The Tory leader promised more independence for the Bank of England, a new war against red tape and insisted that the proceeds of economic growth would be shared between investment in public services and tax cuts.

He argued that a Tory government would do more to help hard-working families who were finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.

"When young families look to take their first steps on to the housing ladder, they find that even the bottom rung is unattainable. Half of all families now rely on their parents for help in buying their first home," he said.

Mr Cameron's call for green taxes will be backed in the quality of life policy review on Thursday. The report will also argue that local communities should be given more powers to resist plans for big superstores in order to defend local shops. It will say that there should be "guidance on issues such as the floor space -allocated to superstore development, including an upper limit cap if desirable."

It said the planning system needed to be changed so that it encouraged diversity at a time when the four biggest supermarket chains controlled three quarters of the food retail market.

There should also be tougher checks on the "wider sustainability" of plans for new out-of-town stores.

The policy review group, which was co-chaired by Zac Goldsmith, the millionaire environmental campaigner, and John Gummer, the former Tory environment secretary, added that the money raised by the new charges would be used by the local authority to fund improved public transport.

This is much more sinister than it seems - it's not a case of supermarkets charging for parking on their own land. It's supermarkets collecting on behalf of the council.

I don't know what the tories are smoking these days but it must be good stuff!!

My local council wanted to introduce traffic calming into our town centre to put people off using their cars, they used the excuse it was to improve air quality and CO2 levels. Last week (in the local paper) the council want to knock down houses in the town centre and use the space to build another car park.