TRADERS across Barnet have vowed to continue to fight the council’s pay-by-phone parking scheme into the new year.

North Finchley trader Helen Michaels and High Barnet Trader’s Association chair Gail Laser met over the Christmas break to discuss the next move in a joint campaign for all Barnet traders established earlier this month.

Ms Michaels said: “We are trying to encourage all traders who feel strongly about this to come forward and join us.

“We have been taking it very slowly, but as the campaign ramps up in the new year, we will be getting more aggressive.”

The group is keeping its plans under wraps, but says there will be public demonstrations to illustrate the traders’ fury at the loss of business due to parking charges and payment methods.

Posters have already been displayed in shop windows across the borough and petition forms lie beside cash registers.

More than 1,000 people have signed an online parking petition set up by Barnet’s Labour group.

The petition is calling for parking charges and changes to cashless parking to be reversed.

The party claims that the cost of parking has been the subject of “vociferous complaint” by local shoppers and traders, who believe that high streets and town centres have already become deserted as a result of cashless parking.

Labour’s environment spokesman, Councillor Kath McGuirk, said: “The level of support for our petition shows just how strongly local people feel about these draconian parking charges, but Barnet’s Tory leader and his colleagues still seem to be completely clueless about the harsh reality that ordinary people face.

“The Tories only introduced the pay-by-cash scratch cards a few weeks ago and they are already proposing to increase the cost of them by five per cent.

“This year we have seen other increases in parking charges across Barnet up to 300 per cent – this has to stop.

“We are hoping to get 7,000 signatures by March in order to force a council meeting on parking.”