A NEWPORT motorist has criticised council plans to make disabled drivers pay for personal parking spaces outside their homes.

Newport council is considering charging for individual residential disabled parking bays - even though able bodied drivers who use the new style spaces will not be fined.

It currently costs the council £1,100 to process the Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) needed to create a space, and the council averages only 13 a year.

The order means police and traffic wardens can punish able-bodied drivers using the spaces.

The new option to charge residents and bypass the TRO could shorten waiting times by creating 40 spaces a year, but these spaces will not be legally enforceable.

Mel Kenvyn, aged 71, of Barthropp Street, Lliswerry, said: "I've been waiting for a disabled parking bay outside my house since May 2002. "I was told it would only take between six and nine months. Yet twenty months later I'm still no nearer to a parking bay.

"Now they're planning to bring in new procedures and it seems silly to me that disabled people are being asked to pay for signs at a time when they're also planning to remove the threat of prosecution for drivers who park illegally."

The council hope that able-bodied motorists will co-operate by leaving the spaces empty despite the lack of legal enforcement.

And although not being guaranteed their own space, disabled motorists could be asked to pay for a sign displaying the council logo, stating that the space is meant for them.

A spokeswoman for Newport council said: "Existing applicants for residential individual disabled parking places have been advised that all applications are on hold subject to a decision by Councillor Graham Dally, the cabinet member for transport and sustainable development."

The proposals, put forward by the council's transport overview and scrutiny forum, will not affect individual disabled bays already in existence.