YORK'S tourism chief Gillian Cruddas has joined the hundreds of city residents signing up every day to the Evening Press's Stop The Highway Robbery campaign.

Mrs Cruddas stressed she signed our petition form calling for the scrapping of evening and on-street parking charges "as an individual" and not in her official capacity as chief executive of the York Tourism Bureau.

But in a wide-ranging interview with the Evening Press, in which she was speaking as head of the city's tourist organisation, she said: "We are concerned about the impact of evening car parking charges on York's tourism economy.

"We are in dialogue with the City of York Council to discuss all the issues, and to endeavour to find a way forward."

In her interview, Mrs Cruddas described next year's Royal Ascot event in York as a unique opportunity to showcase the city to the world.

But she also hinted at a possible missed opportunity for a state-of-the-art modern conference facility as part of the Barbican redevelopment. The council's brief for the redevelopment put a lot of emphasis on the swimming pool, she said. "But the importance of the Barbican as a conference venue was slightly overlooked." It was now up to the council and other organisations like her own to ensure, through ongoing discussions with the developers, that the opportunity for a conference facility was not wasted, she said.

Updated: 10:27 Friday, July 23, 2004