PROPOSALS to get people out of cars and on to public transport will not work because the Government will bow to pressure to water them down, East Lancashire environmentalists have warned.

Deputy prime minister John Prescott has unveiled plans to tax company parking spaces and persuade parents to send their children to school by bus or cycle rather than taking them by car.

Plans were also announced to pump more money into railways and other forms of public transport.

But East Lancs Friends of the Earth spokesman Brian Jackson said the nations' "infatuation" with the car would lead to pressure being put on the Government to dilute its proposals .

He said: "We believe the Government will back away from setting national targets to reduce Traffic. We want a 10 per cent reduction in car use by the year 2010.

"In East Lancashire, the proposed Colne Foulridge Skipton bypass should be abandoned and money should be put into the railway line from Blackburn to Colne instead.

"The line should be made double track from Burnley to Colne and once again run beyond Colne to Skipton."

Coun Hazel Harding, chairman of the Lancashire County Council education and cultural services committee, welcomed the proposals to discourage parents from taking their children to school by car. She said: "The situation outside some schools is horrendous with parents undertaking dangerous manoeuvres in their cars.

"We have organised many 'walk to school days' and John Prescott is proposing policies we have long subscribed to."

County Council Traffic and Highways chairman Richard Toon broadly welcomed plans to put more money into public transport and pedestrianise town centres.

But Blackburn Chamber of Trade spokesman Rita Wakeley was unenthusiastic about the idea of taxing company car parking spaces to discourage workers from driving to their place of employment.

She said it would inevitably lead to increased prices for consumers and added: "Companies will just put their prices up to make up for the extra costs.

"I think people will still go to work in their cars and use side streets instead of company car parks. Side streets in Blackburn are already choc-a-bloc so goodness knows what it will be like if this is introduced."

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