EAST Oxford residents have until Friday to have their say about controversial parking permit schemes.

Oxfordshire County Council is carrying out feasibility studies for the East Oxford/Iffley Fields and Divinity Road areas of East Oxford and the first round of 'pre-consultation consultation' ends on Friday.

The exact roads involved have not been revealed by the council, which is currently "processing" surveys of car numbers in the area.

Mari Girling, chairman of Iffley Fields Residents' Association who lives in Warwick Street, said people in the area were "open-minded" about the issue.

She said: "Controlled parking zones wouldn't necessarily solve our problems, which are mainly term time and worse at evenings and weekends than in daytime.

"We were worried about visitors being ticketed in the small hours when they had not changed their permits for the next day ones.

"We were generally worried about this being a revenue raising exercise with small advantage to residents."

She said the residents' association was not aware of major problems with commuter parking. David Barton, chairman of the Iffley Road Area Residents Association, which covers Iffley and Stanley roads, said many residents were in favour of parking controls.

He said: "There is evidence that people are parking on Iffley Road to take a bus into town in order to avoid parking charges.

"Any parking zone would need to place limits on the numbers of cars per house, and in the case of large houses that are now student accommodation, no permits should be given.

"In my personal view, this is becoming a matter of urgency."

Parking permits, which are already in place in parts of East Oxford, would cost £40 per year.

The scheme, if introduced, would not include road closures, changes to speed limits or traffic calming.

Lynne Trenery, traffic spokesman for the Divinity Road Area Residents Association, said there was some confusion about which roads could be included.

She said: "I have spoken to people in Rectory Road who now have residents' parking, and they say it hasn't delivered because they haven't been able to park in their own streets.

"However, we need to have the results of the surveys before we can formulate an official opinion."

A presentation will be going to Oxford City Council's east area committee tomorrow when residents will be able to comment on the plans and residents' associations must also respond by Friday.

James Gagg, senior transport planner at the county council said "information" meetings with residents' associations, county and city councillors, had now been held.

He said: "These meetings have allowed for problems and issues to be reviewed and to feed into the feasibility work."

If the zones are introduced, it would take at least two years from February, when the feasibility study ends.