Winchester City Council's Christmas present to citizens is a huge hike in the cost of parking outside their homes.

The parking review group has recommended that an annual permit for residents and visitors should increase by two-thirds from £15 to £25 for the first permit in each household, while additional permits will cost £50.

Business permits are also to soar, from £30 to £50 and from £200 to £300, depending on the type, while amenity permits for charities will increase from £10 to £15.

Residents' parking permits were introduced in the early 1990s and cost £10 until they were increased to £15 in 2002. Critics say the latest rise is too much to pay and simply a way of the council earning money, but the authority denied that saying the increases were simply to recover costs of operating the scheme, which is loss-making.

Ben Beavan, who lives with his wife and son, in Monks Road, Hyde, has a car parking permit and a visitor permit. He said: "It's an astonishing amount to have to pay to park outside your own home. That's an increase of about 66% and I just don't know what we get in return. It's a fantastic revenue-earner for the council. If you have visitors and want to invest for them, too, it's a lot up front."

Michael Morris, who lives opposite Mr Beavan and has three permits, agreed: "It's outrageous and a hugely unjustifiable increase. The way they're putting up fees just doesn't equate to how prices have gone up elsewhere."

Labour group leader, Patrick Davies, said: "The council is in danger of forgetting why we have residents' parking schemes. The idea was to deter parking by commuters from outside the area who were making life a misery for local residents. It shouldn't be a tax for parking in the street near one's own home. I'm not convinced the council can justify more than doubling the income from residents' permits.

Richard Knasel, responsible for economy and transport, said: "The on-street parking permits are currently being subsidised by other parking income. We will still be subsidising the first permit and the proposed increases will ensure that the scheme is self-funded in future."

He added that the costs of on-street permits should reflect the scheme's cost to the council. The approximate cost of issuing a permit, receiving and processing the payment, and dealing with enquiries was £15 per permit, while the approximate cost of enforcing the scheme was £25 per permit.

Mr Knasel said that if the permit scheme didn't exist, the council would save £300,000 per year. "It should be the people who benefit from the scheme who pay for it."

The new permit charges are among a raft of measures to increase the cost of parking in Winchester being introduced by the city council. The review group has also proposed that, at on street pay and display and the council's own car parks charges should increase by 10p an hour.

A space for 30 minutes at both will remain the same at 30p, while for anything longer, the short-stay car park charges would increase from 60p to 70p per hour. At long-stay parks, the price would increase from 40p to 50p per hour.

The proposals will be considered by the council's Environment and Access Performance Committee on Wednesday and then by cabinet a fortnight later.