VOLUNTEERS who help maintain a popular Worcester park have hit out at city council plans to turn part of it into a car park.

The Friends of Cripplegate Park say they are "extremely concerned" about the scheme to extend the Bamboo car park by 76 spaces.

The spaces will take up 21,527sq ft of the 466,733sq ft park - around four per cent of its area.

The Friends are now urging park lovers to contact the council and voice their opposition.

"It is an area of public open space. It is part of the riverside conservation area and should not be considered for development," said Linda Sammonds, chairwoman of the friends.

She added many people used the area in their lunch hour, for picnics or just to sit and relax.

Seventy car-parking spaces are being lost with the council's sale of land on the Newport Street car park for the development of luxury flats.

The local authority can make up the lost car parking income by doubling the existing Tybridge Street site.

City MP Mike Foster supports the friends and is urging Worcester residents to "stand up" to the council to prevent the park from disappearing under concrete.

"The Tory-run city council has made a fortune from flogging off car parking spaces for luxury flats," he said.

"Now they want to build on Cripplegate Park so they can earn car parking fees from elsewhere."

Francis Lankester, the council's cabinet member for tourism and riverside regeneration, said: "The extra £32,000 revenue raised once we develop the car park would be ring fenced for the year to year running and improvements to all the parks in Worcester.

"It is the cabinet's view that we want to do something with Cripplegate Park very much. None of us wants to see the park lose out."

In 1992 plans to build a supermarket on Cripplegate Park were rejected but it cost the then leader of the Labour-run council, Roger Berry, his seat.

It also played a part in preventing him from being chosen as the Labour's prospective parliamentary candidate for Worcester. Instead the party picked Mike Foster.