Consultants advise authority to increase parking provision to avoid hitting local businesses and tourism.

CONSULTANTS have rejected plans to ban cars from a national park as a way of protecting it from pollution, and have instead called for more car parks to be built.

The Snowdonia Green Key Initiative, which includes Gwynedd Council and the National Park Authority there, wanted to force motorists to leave their cars outside the park and use an improved bus service.

But the proposals met with objections from local businesses who formed a group called Freedom to Choose to oppose them.

Consultants RPS Planning and Transport were called in to look at the proposals put forward by Green Key.

The consultant's report will go before the Park Authority on June 5 and it rejects the Green Key Initiative's central idea of banning cars from the national park.

Instead of forcing motorists to use ``gateway car parks'' before taking a bus the consultants simply recommend building more car parks.

RPS Planning and Transport said changing the existing pattern of carborne tourism will be extremely difficult and cannot be achieved by radical measures.

Accommodating the car and minimising its impact on the area, needs to be balanced against the potential harm to the tourist industry if Snow-donia is perceived as a place where cars are not welcome and motorists are penalised for undertaking outdoor activities or seeking to enjoy the scenery, says the report.

The consultants recommended more car parking facilities at Pen y Gwryd and in the Ogwen Valley.

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