YORK'S evening parking charges have come under a blistering attack from York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce.

President-elect Andrew Lindsay claimed the charges were damaging a number of York businesses, "flew in the face of common sense" and were even a "tax on education" by pushing evening classes out of the city centre.

His stinging rebuke came as:

The number of people signing the Evening Press' Stop the Highway Robbery petition topped 3,000

Opponents of parking charges and restrictions prepared to lobby City of York Council at 5pm today over controversial evening and on-street charges and restrictions, before councillors debate calls for an urgent review.

Mr Lindsay, who takes over as Chamber president in September, said its board of directors had discussed evening charges at a recent board meeting, following representations by Chamber members and other businesses about the impact on trade, and was speaking out on behalf of all affected businesses, not just Chamber members.

"I can't think of another issue that has generated more anger and united local businesses more,' said Mr Lindsay, who is head of the corporate department of leading commercial solicitors, Denison Till. He said the council had to address the issue as a matter of priority before further damage was done to the city's evening economy and reputation.

He said: "This policy flies in the face of common sense. On the one hand, the council is exhorting businesses to create an evening economy, which the Chamber fully supports. Yet, on the other hand, it is discouraging customers of those businesses who stay open after 6pm, by levying evening parking charges on them."

He said the council had regularly stated that it had a large funding gap that had to be bridged. Private businesses would deal with issues like this by cutting costs, eradicating activities and expenditure that were not absolutely essential and implementing redundancies, if necessary.

He said it was not just a lack of joined-up thinking on business issues that had concerned the Chamber.

Some continuing education classes in the centre of York were having to be relocated to the university campus at Heslington because of evening car park charges. "That cannot be right. The city shouldn't be imposing a tax on education!

"Restaurants and bars, cinemas, the theatres, evening attractions and the enormous variety of fantastic businesses open in the early evening that help to make York such a colourful and vibrant place, are also being adversely affected.

"I can imagine that every business that depends on the evening economy in York that suffers a downturn in trade from now on will blame these evening charges. And who can blame them?'

He urged businesses who were not already Chamber members to join so it could make their views known to the council.

Council leader Steve Galloway said today: "The council has worked hard to develop, over the last year, good working relations with the Chamber of Commerce and other organisations representing business in the city.

"Yesterday, for example, we had a constructive meeting with representatives of small traders in the city.

"Mr Lindsay's broad-brush statements about "eradicating activities and implementing redundancies" are unlikely to do much to generate goodwill and mutual understanding between our two organisations."

Updated: 10:50 Thursday, July 29, 2004