WINCHESTER's chronic traffic chaos will be worsened by parking plans in its £100m city centre redevelopment, fear councillors.

The city council wants only half the proposed 364 homes in the Broadway-Friarsgate scheme to have a parking space.

But Tory councillors believe that is unrealistic as home buyers will bring their cars when the scheme is completed by 2011.

They fear it will exacerbate the city's already notorious congestion and parking problems.

Councillor George Beckett said: "They are proposing to find 180 families who don't have a car. I don't know they exist. The buyers of reasonably expensive homes will have cars and they will leave them somewhere.

"This could make the traffic situation a whole lot worse quite easily. People's cars are going to be scattered all over the place."

"We have to live in the real world. We should look again at making provision for them. We don't want to affect the progress of the scheme but it's our job to raise these questions," said Mr Beckett.

The Liberal Democrat-controlled city council's wish for limited parking fits in with its policy of reducing the dominance of the car in the city centre.

The council hopes to make more use of park-and-ride and other alternatives to the car such as public transport and cycling.

Labour group leader Patrick Davies backs the idea. He said: "In the census 40 per cent of households in the city centre don't have cars. We can reasonably assume that we will be able to sell new housing to people who do not have cars, like me."

Robin Cooper, director of development services, said cars could be parked for free in the council car parks between 6pm to 8am.

But Mr Beckett said: "People will be able to park at night but what about on days off or the holidays? We ought to ask the developer Thornfield Properties, to look at this again."

One beneficiary might be the black market in residents-only parking permits. Visitors' permits are being secretly sold for hundreds of pounds to drivers, as reported in the Daily Echo in the summer.