CALLS are growing for businesses to be charged for parking spaces as councillors claim it could fund under-threat bus routes.

Liz Brighouse, leader of the Labour opposition group on Oxfordshire County Council, said the workplace parking levy should be brought in for Oxford city centre from 2018.

According to the group, a scheme similar to one in Nottingham could generate more than £2.2 million a year.

It comes after councillors agreed to make £69 million of controversial cuts to the county council’s budget over the next four years, including scrapping subsidies paid to bus companies.

Mrs Brighouse said cash from the levy should be used for transport schemes and could replace some of the lost bus funding, potentially saving some of the more than 100 under-threat bus routes that campaigners say are vital to the elderly and disabled.

She said: “People driving into Oxford has made city centre traffic horrendous.

“We have looked at other schemes in the country and it is now time to put some real impetus behind making it happen here.

“We could not use it to fund anything except transport schemes, but that does mean it could help bring back bus subsidies.”

A workplace parking levy was included in Oxfordshire County Council’s Local Transport Plan, which was approved last year.

The levy would at first apply to the city centre, from Magdalen Bridge to Oxford Station, and would charge organisations a set amount for each parking space they owned above a set threshold, Mrs Brighouse said.

In Nottingham – which Labour has looked at as an example – the levy applies to businesses with 11 or more parking spaces, with each space costing £375 per year.

It does not apply to customer parking spaces or emergency services and hospitals, but Mrs Brighouse said in Oxford it should include Oxford University and its colleges.

The county council has previously argued it would be “realistic” to bring the measure in by 2019 and it could generate millions of pounds for transport schemes.

But the proposal has been met with little enthusiasm from business groups, who last year told the Oxford Mail it would pile further costs on firms.

Conservative county council leader Ian Hudspeth said he thought bringing in a levy by 2018 was “ambitious” and it should be used to fund a new public transport scheme, such as the trams in Nottingham.

He added: “We would have to show how it can improve the transport system.

“People would want a clear vision.”

A county council spokesman said it was not yet known how much cash a levy could bring in, but added: “A lot more work, including widespread community and business engagement, needs to be done yet and the council will be embarking on this shortly.”

A programme for putting a levy in place would be put forward in the summer, the spokesman said.