GREEN party councillors are calling for hundreds of thousands of pounds to be poured into York's parks.

The party has produced its alternative budget for City of York Council, including £239,000 extra a year for gardeners, park rangers and the night time locking of the city’s five parks.

The party is also pushing for a 10 per cent cut in cost of residents' parking fees, to be paid for by a 10p per hour increase in charges for non-resident city centre parking.

At the same time, they want to see council tax go up by a total of 5.99 per cent- higher than both the joint Lib Dem/ Conservative administration's 3.5 per cent and Labour's bid of 4.5 percent.

However, Green group leader Cllr Andy D'Agorne said £300,000 brought in by the tax hike would go towards helping people on the lowest incomes by changing the rules on council tax support, and through the Financial Assistance Fund.