THE owners of a car park in Saltaire have said there will not be a repeat of the zero tolerance enforcement that blighted the village last year.

A representative of Saltaire Investments was addressing councillors about concerns over the Oastler Road Car Park, off Bingley Road.

Yesterday Bradford Council's Keighley and Shipley Area Planning Panel approved an application to legally turn part of the road into a car park.

The land had been run by Bradford Council since 2004, and motorists were given 20 minutes of free parking. But last year the lease was taken over by Birmingham-based Smart Parking on behalf of owners Saltaire Investments.

The free 20 minutes remained, but the new system required motorists to log their car’s registration for the free period. Many failed to do so, and were hit with fines of £100.

After investigations by the Council it emerged that the land had never actually been given permission to be used as a car park - it was classed as a public highway. The car park use was declared unlawful, and people have been able to park for free ever since.

A planning application to turn all of Oastler Road into a car park was refused earlier this year, and the owners submitted new plans to change the use of only the parking bays from highway to car park. They said this would allow traffic, including vehicles making deliveries to the village's Co-op, to pass through.

Martyn Burke, senior planning officer, said there were 100 objections to the plans, but added: "Most of the objections were about the way the site was managed in the past, and concerns this would be repeated. However, this car park is an important feature in Saltaire, it is an important facility for shoppers. It has been used as a car park for many decades and it has shown not to be causing any problems with traffic or safety. It is all about how the parking is managed. That is up to the operator to decide, it is not a planning issue."

Ben Berlin, representing the applicants, said: "Our aim has always been to ensure the viability of Bingley Road as a shopping destination and make sure people have somewhere to park. Last time the company we appointed to run the car park took advantage by ordering people to key in their registration number, even for the free period. We will be returning to 20 minutes free parking and there is no intention to issue tickets like in the past. At the moment there are no restrictions - people can park there all day and walk to their office. It isn't serving local shops. We want to implement parking that works for everyone."

The committee then approved the plans.

Saltaire Investments will now need to seek a highways act to extinguish the highways rights for the parking spaces.

After the meeting Shipley Councillor Vick Jenkins said: "I am in communication with Saltaire Investments, they assure me it will run on similar lines to the previous Bradford Council car park. They are keen not to repeat mistakes of last year and I intend to remain in close contact with them to put forward local views and influence the decision making."