A purge to encourage city centre workers to leave their cars at home and travel to work on public transport has been highlighted by National Car Free Day.

And Coventry Council chiefs believe that they have laid down plans to ensure that people will start using public transport as second nature.

Richard Hartle, one of Coventry Council’s city development engineers believes that an ambitious five year Integrated Transport Strategy will put Coventry among the front runners of car free cities.

He said:

"We have laid plans for a strategy to make wholesale improvements to public transport in the city which will hopefully encourage people to use their cars less.

"It is a five year plan which will compliment the existing improvements we have made including the Showcase Bus Route down the Foleshill Road and the Park and Ride schemes.

"We are applying to the Government this summer to grant us the funding for a second showcase route which would will probably be on the other side of the city to the existing north-side route.

"We are also taking measures to show people that they can rely on the services, like the implementation of on-line digital screens telling people exactly how long the next bus will be."

The council also sees park and ride schemes as a significant way of lowering traffic levels in Coventry, and Hartle is delighted that these initiatives are beginning to prove successful.

He said:

"The Memorial Park development has 400 spaces and I would say that it is almost always three-quarters full, and we have had word today that the new one we have built at Courthouse Green is averaging around 40 cars.

"This is great news because when it first opened there were only five or six cars using it so the word is obviously spreading."

Another piece of news which could help reduce city traffic is the recent speculation that the Government may introduce a tax levy on company car parking spaces.

It is a scheme that Coventry could possibly help pioneer, but Hartle stresses these proposals are still at a very early stage.

"The Government is considering charging companies a certain levy for their car parking facilities, and is looking for regions to take this up as a pilot scheme," he said.

"People are talking about it as an individual tax on car parking spaces but it would actually be up to the company whether they passed that cost on to the employee.

"However, we are still in deep discussion with the business community to gauge their feelings on the matter, and a decision on whether the West Midlands will take part in the pilot will not be made until the summer."