A plea to keep at least some of the concessionary car parking spaces in Weymouth will be made to the new Dorset Council.

Existing concessionary arrangements are due to come to an end in the New Year with the new Dorset Council taking over the town's car parks from April.

Many of the concessions are given to organisers of events in the town, with standing arrangement for organisations such as the RNLI, Samaritans and Citizens Advice.

Put together they are said to 'cost' the borough council £40,000 a year.

But several councillors at Tuesday's borough management committee disputed the figures – saying they were based on the actual costs of a full year season ticket whereas the spaces were not used every day, making the figure much lower.

Shadow executive members Cllr Jeff Cant and Colin Huckle will now try an informal approach to the new authority to see if at least some of the parking concessions can be carried on by the new authority.

Said Cllr Colin Huckle: “If we do nothing there will be even more aggravation come April...offering these spaces does provide a lot of economic benefit to the town.”

Cllr Jon Orrell supported trying to keep the concessionary spaces for organisations like the CAB, RNLI and Samaritans because the the direct effect their volunteers had on the lives of people in the area.

“These concessions have been in existence a long time so we are not springing any surprises on the new council.

“We should press strongly that these exemption permits are continued in perpetuity.” he said.

The committee was told that it was likely that the new council would adopt a policy which applied across its area – so that lifeboat crew in Lyme Regis were treated the same as those in Weymouth, or Swanage, with the same rules applying for volunteers for other organisations.