Vince Cable

The battle over parking charges in the Royal Parks reaches a new stage this week now that the minister (Mrs Hodge) has confirmed that she is pressing ahead with a massively unpopular decision to impose parking charges in Richmond and Bushy Parks.

Vincent Cable and Susan Kramer have tabled a demand for a debate in parliament on the minister's order within the next 30 days before it comes into effect. Subsequently, Royal Parks need planning permission for installing the new parking charges infrastructure.

Vincent Cable said: "there is a high level of opposition locally to the charges which are unnecessary, petty, irrelevant to the Parks' objective of reducing through traffic and undermine the role of the Parks as a place of relaxation where residents are not harried by parking wardens and constantly clock watching".

"We shall use parliamentary procedures to put up as much opposition as we can. But the best way of stopping this proposal now is for both opposition parties to make it clear to the Royal Parks that in the event of a change of government, the decision will be reversed."