A PILOT pricing structure in Grassington's Colvend Car Park designed to attract people to the village looks set to be scrapped.

The national park is likely to revert to its original charges because of an estimated £5,300 in lost revenue.

In January last year the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority bowed to pressure from the district's chamber of trade to try to encourage more people to visit Grassington by altering the cost of car parking.

The appeal was made following the devastation foot and mouth had caused on the economy of the area, and was seen as a way of helping suffering traders stay on their feet.

The authority agreed to a trial period of one year when rates of £1 for up to one hour and £2 for all day waiting in the car park would be changed to £1 for up to two hours and £3 for all day, starting from the beginning of April 2002.

The former chairman of Grassington and District Chamber of Trade Martyn Fretwell, who headed the group during the campaign, said visitors to the village had often commented on the high cost of parking.

"Sometimes it seemed as if they were blaming the shop keepers," he had said.

The traders argued that some car owners parked their vehicles outside residents' homes in an effort to avoid parking fees, causing distress and frustration to the home owners.

On Monday, the authority's finance and resources committee will discuss the ticket sales at the car park, along with a similar scheme run at Dent.

In a report to the committee, contracts manager Joyce Whitley highlights a table of ticket sales over three years from the year 2000.

It shows an increase in actual income from £78,514 three years ago to £80,903 during the same in 2002.

The report shows an increase in ticket sales of 3,588 to 62,654 and, although income is up, because most parkers are opting to pay for a stay of less than two hours, the authority reckons the new pricing policy has brought in £5,200 less than it would have done had there been no change.

The report states: "Clearly the experiment has had a detrimental effect on car park income with no evidence of actual changes in parking behaviour. Given a short stay of two hours and a higher all day fee, motorists "risk" paying the lower charge.

"It is proposed that, subject to the trend in ticket sales continuing to the end of the pilot period on March 31, the charges revert to the standard."

But Mr Fretwell feels the recommendation would be a step backwards for the village and would discourage people from visiting again.

"The chamber fought for a long time to have the charges changed, and feel a longer pilot period would have shown better figures.

"The last three years have certainly not been normal, and it is likely things will not get back to normal for several more years."

He added: "The chamber has done a lot of work of its own, promoting the village as a place to visit with updated websites and coloured brochures which were sent to hotels around Yorkshire. This year the brochure is going nationwide.

"We have also attracted a lot of external funding, and it is through statistics given to us by the national park authority every six months that visitor numbers are increasing, that we have been able to assure our funders that there are signs of improvement.

"I can only see the reverting back to the standard charges as having a detrimental effect on the village and would, instead, like to see the scheme extended for at least another year to get a clearer picture."

The authority is to write to the chamber of trade after the meeting to inform it of the financial consequences and subsequent changes.

The parking charges are due to revert back to the standard rates on April 1.