Councils may soon be allowed to introduce road-pricing to help deter car use. Regional chartered surveyors' leader Tony Lightly explains how the measure may harm the economic well-being of cities like York.

York is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and enjoys a history which attracts thousands of visitors every year. But for those of us who live and work here, it is its future, not its past, which must concern us.

We all cherish the Minster, the Bar Walls and the cobbled streets of the Shambles. But York is not a theme park which can rely solely on the tourist dollar. What has given the city its long and proud history is the fact that it has always had a successful local economy to fuel it.

Against a backdrop of industrial decline, much has been done to drive the city's economy forward. And much has been achieved too - the arrival of Thrall Europa, Smith & Nephew and the Central Science Laboratory as well as York's emergence as a science city complete with one of the top research universities in the country.

But the city cannot rest on its laurels. It knows it must nurture every advantage it has over its competitors to ensure a continuing flow of inward investors who bring with them much-needed jobs.

And that is where the Government's White Paper, proposing as it does road-pricing and taxes on car parking, poses a potential threat.

The White Paper contains many positive proposals for reducing traffic and integrating transport and land use more successfully.

But it is difficult to see what benefits places like York will get from its plans to give local councils the power to introduce road-pricing and car parking taxes.

In York, the problem of traffic congestion, particularly in the city centre, is well documented and growing.

The council is leading the way in developing integrated transport policies which encourage drivers out of their cars. But as well as improving public transport and investing in park and ride, it has also chosen to squeeze long-stay parking in the city centre to deter commuters.

Although this is aimed at reducing congestion, it also means that would-be investors have to weigh the advantages of relocating to York against central parking shortages and continuing traffic problems.

If road-pricing were to be added to this, together with car parking taxes, it is difficult not to envisage many potential investors deciding to relocate elsewhere.

Shops, too, could suffer. For how many shoppers are likely to pay to get into the centre of York if nearby Harrogate, Leeds or Hull are free. Indeed, road-pricing could only increase the threat posed to York's centre by the likes of Clifton Moor, Monks Cross and the soon-to-open Naburn hospital factory shopping site.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) does not have a view, nor should it, on the specifics of how York's traffic policy should develop. But potential investors considering commercial properties or new developments in York look to RICS members for wide ranging advice on the pros and cons of moving here.

After all, surveyors are property professionals, experts in their field whether it be in commercial property, planning and development, construction costs or one of the other specialist fields of land and property.

For some urban areas, measures like road-pricing may well be a useful means of tackling road congestion.

But we at RICS believe road congestion is merely a symptom of too much car use.

The cause is not only inadequate public transport but also the nationwide failure to consider transport and land use in tandem.

For example, if a neighbourhood clinic is closed and its patients sent to a larger clinic on the other side of town, how many more car journeys will be generated?

Decisions about land use are made every day in this country which increase the number of cars on the road.

It is this problem that RICS believes should be tackled as a matter of urgency.

In York, the centre continues to be a thriving and viable commercial core.

However, one can only fear that the introduction of any form of road-pricing may condemn it to a slow and lingering death.

Tony Lightly is chairman of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' Yorkshire branch and founding partner of York-based chartered building surveyors and building consultants Lightly and Lightly.

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