TRAFFIC hell in some of the busiest parts of Oxford city centre 'could be reduced' if tourists were encouraged to stick around for longer.

About seven million people visit Oxford every year but a senior city councillor said he wants tourists to stay for longer and spend more money rather than take a ‘couple of photos’ before leaving on a coach a couple of hours later.

Alex Hollingsworth, the council’s board member for planning and regulatory services, said the impact of coaches ferrying tourists to the centre of Oxford for a summer trip had been ‘unacceptable’ for some years.

Mr Hollingsworth, the council’s board member for planning and regulatory services, said: “It is my view that we need to take steps which gradually make Oxford a popular destination for those who stay longer and spend money and contribute.

“If in doing so [it makes Oxford] less attractive for people who will spend a couple of hours taking a couple of photographs with buses blocking St Giles' and other streets then I think we would benefit as a city by doing so.”

In its local plan, the city council said it wants to provide parking facilities ‘just outside the city centre to the north/south’ for a drop-off point, in the hope that would ‘strike a reasonable balance between supporting tourist access to the historic city centre and limiting the effect of tourism coaches on Oxford’s arterial roads.’

A final consultation on the plan will reopen in June.

According to the city council, about £780m is generated by tourists every year – with that total likely to increase following the re-opening of the Westgate Centre.

Oxfordshire County Council said traffic problems were made worse when building on the Westgate complex started and when the former Oxpens coach park was needed for car parking.

Simon Kosky, who owns gift shops Flaggs, in Broad Street, and Fellows, in High Street, said Mr Hollingsworth’s vision to get more money spent in the city was ‘ideal’.

But he said that any visitor to the city had to be made welcome.

Mr Kosky said: “Some of the people who come on these coaches sometime use that as a dual day out. They might go to Oxford or Warwick or do other things in one day.”

County council spokesman Owen Morton said: “There’s an important debate to be had about whether it is still appropriate for visitor coaches to be driving into and parking in Oxford city centre when what little space we have is under increasing pressure.

“This is an issue for city and county to work on together, which is exactly what we are doing. Neither council can solve it on its own.

“In the meantime we can and do issue penalty charge notices to coaches if they are found to be simply parking up on St Giles. This is done as part of the enforcement officer’s regular route and they can’t be present to deal with every occurrence.”