THE debate about parking spaces in Ilkley town centre has come to a halt as town leaders argue about the direction to go in.

Ilkley Parish Council's Finance and General Purposes Committee has pledged to put pressure on Bradford Council to come up with a solution, including looking again at a park-and-ride scheme or a long-stay car park.

But other councillors claim that the town's parking should be left as it is.

The matter came to the committee in recent months when a deputation of worried Ilkley people turned up at a public meeting to ask for help in halting a scheme which would see much of Ilkley lose half its on-street parking.

A plan to mark out parking bays and issue permits to residents had been drawn up - but introducing formal parking bays would mean double yellow-lines on the opposite side of the street.

Bradford Council has since said it would only implement the parking bay scheme if residents felt it was the only solution to all-day parking in residential streets.

Several parish councillors formed a working group to look at the issue of parking.

One of the group, Councillor Brian Mann, told the recent meeting that members had asked a Bradford Council officer to meet with councillors, but were told he could not do so.

He then said their investigations were leading them to conclude that the parking situation might be better left alone.

"The thing we're coming around towards is the fact that almost 'if it ain't broke don't fix it'. There's not a lot we can do with car parking in Ilkley," said Councillor Mann.

But committee chairman, Councillor Michael Lynes, disagreed that there was no problem with Ilkley parking, and thought the parish council should press ahead with trying to win action on possible solutions, rather than rely on organisations outside Ilkley to come up with the answers.

He said as an Ilkley resident and trader, he was concerned that no longer-term solutions had come back from the Bradford Council-commissioned Faber Maunsell study into Ilkley traffic management.

Councillor Lynes said the parish council had been looking at car parking issues as long as 15 years ago, and had in the past come up with solutions such as a long-stay car park behind Ilkley Playhouse, which would be self-financing - although this was against Government thinking at the time.

Coun Lynes also says suggested park-and-ride schemes backed up by public transport have not come to fruition because the public transport had not been sufficiently developed. It was hoped that a park-and-ride system could reduce the number of commuters driving into Ilkley and parking all day.

Councillor Allan Morrell, meanwhile, argued that the parish council had reached an impasse on the parking issue, and questioned if it was worth councillors continuing to pursue ideas which had been turned away in the past. However, other councillors said they were hopeful that continuing pressure from the parish council might eventually win action to provide a remedy to solve the parking issues.