HIGHWAYS bosses want to create a single controlled parking zone covering the whole of Oxford.

Council highways chief Steve Howell said discussions had taken place about controlling every parking space inside the ring road in the long term.

But Keith Mitchell, outgoing leader of the county council, ruled out the plan, saying it would not work.

Mr Howell, deputy director of environment and economy at the council’s highways department, said: “There is an aspiration among officers to have a citywide parking zone so that it would impact on the area within the ring road “Every parking space would be controlled in some way.

“But the chances of that happening in the short to medium term are slim because of the current financial climate.

“This is something we have discussed with the cabinet member for transport Rodney Rose but it has gone no further.”

The suggestion, made at last weekend’s Oxford Civic Society symposium to discuss how best to reduce congestion in the city, provoked mixed reactions.

Mr Mitchell said: “As Margaret Thatcher once said about Europe: ‘No, no, no!’ “We have got a lot of very difficult things to do. It is a very big job, and I am not sure the whole city is the same.

“My worry about a blanket policy is that it will not work.”

Promoting Oxford Business spokesman Graham Jones said: “I would have serious reservations about a controlled parking zone covering the whole of the inner ring road.

“Businesses in the city centre are already competing with out-of-town supermarkets and the internet and we don’t want to make it more challenging for shoppers coming into Oxford.”

But transport expert Hugh Jaeger said: “On the plus side, it would even things up so you do not have outsider parking displaced from places which have controlled parking zones (CPZs) to those which do not, and it would mean better control of unauthorised parking.

“But nobody likes being charged for parking outside their own home.

“The worry in the community will be that if an area does not have a parking problem, why should it have a CPZ?”

Labour’s county council transport spokesman John Sanders said a citywide CPZ would be “sensible”.

But he added: “It would mean that you could not drive around the city looking for somewhere to park, and incomers would have to use the park-and-rides.

“But the objection I have got is they would charge for it.

“Essentially, it impacts more on poor people who need a car to get to work but have not got a garage and so park on the street.

“We pay council tax, and parking permits are an extra £50 a year for the pleasure of having a car.”

County Hall has always insisted that its CPZ schemes are not designed to generate a surplus, but last year’s accounts show that it generated an extra £110,442.76.

The council said when the cost of enforcing double-yellow lines in the same streets are included, there was a £178,219 deficit.

Permits currently cost £50 for the first two vehicles per house, and £100 for the third and fourth.

At the symposium, which brought together experts and residents, Mr Howell also said there was “no appetite” among politicians to introduce an Oxford congestion charge and any new initiatives would be limited by a lack of Government cash.

Former reader in transport studies at Oxford Brookes University, Peter Headicar, estimated there would be a 70 per cent increase in car ownership in and around Oxford by 2041.

He said the county council had to consider a congestion charge and additional park-and-ride sites to reduce the number of cars coming into the city.

Councillor Ian Hudspeth, who is tipped as a possible successor to Mr Mitchell when he steps down in May, was unavailable for comment on the idea.