Extortionate parking charges at Porlock Weir — a tiny hamlet adjacent to a shingle beach which has a handful of businesses catering to tourists. Visit Porlock village two miles away and you have to pay similar charges again. West Somerset District Council clearly see drivers as cash cows, and are blind to the damage such charges do to tourism.

The Association of British Drivers expresses deep concern over excessive rises in car parking charges across much of the country as revealed by a Sunday Telegraph investigation 1 and questions the legality of some of these increases which have been reported as being as high as 300% 2.

Spokesman Nigel Humphries said:

“It seems that some councils are once again using the motorist as a cash cow to fill black holes in their budgets when faced with capped council taxes and reduced grants from central government. We would like to remind councils that the Road Traffic Regulation Act (1984) makes it quite clear that councils may only levy parking charges to make appropriate improvements to parking facilities and other traffic management provisions and may not be used as a "council tax supplement" simply to raise general revenues.”

Mr Humphries continued:

“It appears rather implausible that all this extra revenue will be targeted on parking provisions and road management and we would challenge any council imposing increases above the rate of inflation to clearly spell out exactly how this money will be spent.’

ABD Chairman Brian Gregory added:

“This government declared it was going to end the war on the motorist yet we are seeing a number of councils imposing yet another ‘parking tax’ on hard pressed drivers. We call upon the Ministers for Transport and Local Government to put an immediate stop to this practice.’