UNJUST, unfair and a mockery of democracy - that is the reaction of residents who will be paying to park outside their own homes from now on.

Ruling Conservative councillors voted unanimously to charge people in Oxford £40 a year for their residents' parking permits at a meeting of Oxfordshire County Council's cabinet yesterday.

The nine councillors, who all represent areas outside the city, agreed the plan after a consultation of 26,000 households revealed that two-thirds of respondents were against the plan.

David Robertson, cabinet member for transport, said: "We have taken account of the consultation."

Richard Dix, the council's head of transport, said it was rare to have a free residents' parking scheme, and said the expected £480,000 income would only be spent on enforcement or, if there was a surplus, on transport in Oxford.

Keith Mitchell, leader of the council, asked for the income and expenditure of the scheme to be transparent so that people "can be satisfied that it has not been spent on supporting the council tax".

Opponents of the charges said residents would simply refuse to pay.

Chaka Artwell, of Headington, said: "It makes a complete mockery of democracy when you have a decision like that."

Georgina Gibbs, of Saxon Way in Headington, said: "It is like when they introduced the poll tax. That wasn't a fair tax and I feel this is the same thing.

"I don't think it is going to be enforceable. It is going to be like the poll tax - people won't pay and they (the county council) are going to look really stupid."

Window cleaner Mick Fry said the charges would ruin small businesses like his.

After the meeting, he said: "It was a done deal months ago. It didn't matter how many people opposed it, they had made up their minds."

Several city councillors and opposition party county councillors also attended and spoke against the plans.

Labour county councillor Liz Brighouse said her residents in Barton and Churchill were paying for parking problems created by the expansion of Oxford Brookes University and the hospitals.

She said that citing other cities which charged for residents' parking schemes was misleading as many of them only charged in city centre areas, not in the estates and suburbs on the edge of the city.

She said: "I believe the people of this city are going to simply tell you, can't pay, won't pay."

Another Labour county councillor Barbara Gatehouse, who submitted a petition from residents of Leys and Lye, said her constituents were being punished after they had been assured that the Kassam Stadium would not lead to parking problems.

She said: "I think it is completely unfair and completely unjust for you to try and start charging them when they were good enough to agree to the stadium."

Susanna Pressel, Labour city councillor for Jericho, who handed in a 700-name petition against the plans, said: "There is massive public opposition to this and not a single city councillor, or county councillor in a city ward, is in favour of this."