RESIDENTS and traders keen to find out whether parking charges could be introduced on streets in Nailsea, Clevedon and Portishead will have to wait until the New Year for an update on the issue.

As part of its efforts to plug its multi-million-pound funding gap, North Somerset Council is looking into introducing more on-street and off-street parking charges across the district.

Such charges have already been implemented in Weston and the attention is currently on Nailsea, Clevedon and Portishead.

The authority’s Strategic Planning and Economic Development Policy and Scrutiny Panel (SPED) has created a working party to look into the proposals for the north of the district.

Meetings have been held with councillors, traders and interested parties in each of the towns to discuss the best scenario for each location. However, petitions set up in all three towns against the proposals have resulted in thousands of signatures being collected.

The working party was due to put forward recommendations for each of the towns at the latest SPED meeting on November 19.

However, proposals have not yet been compiled, meaning the issue will now be discussed at the panel’s January meeting instead.

Any recommendations put to the SPED panel will then have to be passed to the authority’s executive for final approval.