Pedestrian priority should go ahead in Kendal in spite of the lack of park and ride schemes to reduce traffic, according to one transport expert.

Alan James, a specialist transport advisor from the Government's Transport Energy Department, told a special investigation by South Lakeland District Council the town could not afford to wait for all elements of the plan to be in place before pressing ahead with pedestrianisation.

Mr James, who worked on the Kendal Traffic Plan in its early stages, told SLDC's overview and scrutiny committee: "If you wait for everything to be in place at the same time you could wait forever," he said. "When you have done pedestrianisation it will sharpen the commitment to getting on with the rest of it."

The Kendal Traffic Plan was first conceived in 1997 as a four-stage scheme to ease congestion in light of predictions that queues, delays and pollution in the town would escalate to unacceptable levels by 2006.

The central planks of Cumbria County Council's £4.9 million plan were to replace the town's 1960s one-way system and introduce pedestrian priority along Stricklandgate while improving bus services and other facilities and offering park and ride schemes to keep commuters' cars out of town.

However, the original plan has run into trouble after the implementation of phase one which saw traffic flows reversed down Lowther Street as a precursor to pedestrian priority.

Key elements, such as widening Miller Bridge to allow two-way traffic along Aynam Road, have been shelved and a park and ride scheme at Underbarrow/Brigsteer Road will not now be in place before 2006/7.

CCC's deviation from the original traffic package has drawn fierce criticism from traders and others and this week SLDC's overview and scrutiny committee held a special investigation into the current state of play.

Mr James said he understood what were common concerns from retailers, but stressed that the pedestrianisation of UK town centres had been going on for 40 years and "the experience has been invariably that pedestrianisation has improved turnover."

He also said Kendal was a prime candidate to benefit because it already had a "top quality townscape" and good shopping facilities, but was "not quite there yet" because of its traffic problems.

But many in the business community vehemently disagreed. Businessman George Inchmore spoke out as chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses in Kendal.

He and Peter Boyd, manager of the Elephant Yard Shopping Centre and chairman of Kendal Retail Forum, told the committee that traders had seen a downturn in trade since the introduction of phase one which, they claimed, had taken pedestrians out of the town.

Mr Inchmore said CCC was ignoring the legitimate concerns of business, and said CCC engineers, Capita, had ignored "serious concerns" about the viability of the scheme raised by Singleton Clamp a firm of independent experts commissioned by traders to look at the problem.

It would be, he said, folly to push ahead with pedestrianisation without the full package of measures promised at the outset.

"They are just not thinking about business," he said.

There was, however, good news about progress on developing a mini park and ride in the near future.

SLDC councillor Bob Barker told the committee that, thanks mainly to the efforts of Mr Inchmore rather than CCC, a deal to set up an edge-of-town mini park and ride for commuters was now in the offing, although he could not disclose in public exactly where it might be.

The overview and scrutiny committee is due to discuss the finding of it inquiry at a special meeting on Friday, May 28.