Council chiefs have admitted spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer's money to subsidise car-parking in Oxford.

Green Party members criticised the council after a meeting of the highways and traffic committee of Oxford City Council was told that city centre parking was subsidised to the tune of £900,000 in the first four months of the year.

The Greens also claimed that Oxford's Park and Ride scheme was subsidised by £300,000 in the same period.

They argued that the total cost of subsidy would equal more than £2m in a year. Cllr Paul Ingram, who serves on the traffic and highway's committee, said: "It is plainly ludicrous for Oxford's citizens to be subsidising car drivers coming into our city centre, particularly when finances are tight. "We must close up this gaping hole and shift the subsidies towards public transport, and encouraging cycling and walking."

Oxford City Council leader John Tanner said that the car parks in Oxford usually made an annual profit of about £1m, but there had been a shortfall this year due to the disruption caused by the implementation of the Oxford Transport Strat- egy.

He said: "What we would really like is for people to leave their cars at home and get on the bus for their journeys. To suggest that we regularly subsidise car parking is simply not true."

Story date: Monday 25 October

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