CLAIMS that the town's new multi-storey car park is a "white elephant" and is hardly ever more than half full have been refuted by Bromsgrove District Council, who say the facility has been designed to enable the town to cater for growing numbers of visitors.

Peter McDonald, leader of the Labour group on the council, says that parking charges at the Churchfields car park are too high and do not reflect the town's limited drawing power as a shopping centre.

"This car park was built with £400,000 of ratepayers money but is rarely more than half full. The charges are set far too high given that Bromsgrove does not have the major shops needed to attract large numbers of visitors," said Cllr McDonald.

"The only major store that Bromsgrove has is Asda and yet the parking charges are comparable with places with many more big name shops.

"There are two issues, the immediate problem of the parking charge being too high and the lack of vision which means that the town has so few shopping attractions."

"We need an immediate investigation into what has become a 'white elephant' and a review of the charges," he added.

But John Moody, head of community, safety and engineering at the district council, said the car park, which can take up to 330 vehicles, has been built with the future in mind.

"If all the spaces were full we would be accused of lack of vision. There are many car parks that are less than full much of the time but the important thing is to be able to cater for the peaks so that people do not stay away from Bromsgrove because they cannot find anywhere to park," Mr Moody said.

"There are many occasions at weekends and at other peaks, like Christmas and market days, when the car park is nearly full. We also offer excellent facilities, like 24 hour closed circuit television and good lighting, which means that the number of thefts from parked cars is low. We are seeing a year on year increase in ticket sales, including a growth in the number of longer stay tickets, which suggests that Bromsgrove does have a lot to offer visitors and we expect this trend to continue."

Mr Moody said the car parking charge had been set taking into account comparisons with other similar towns and that the fees in Bromsgrove tended to be "at the lower end of the scale."