Clifton residents have accused the Conservative party of playing “political games” with the proposed Residents’ Parking Scheme (RPS) after throwing a spanner in the works.

Bristol City Council’s cabinet approved pilot zones for Brandon Hill and Kingsdown at a meeting on Thursday but almost immediately the Tory councillors called it in.

Group leader Richard Eddy and his party’s transport spokesman Cllr Peter Abraham’s actions effectively put the decision on hold until a special scrutiny panel of councillors can look at it again. The party has argued the consultation that led to the pilot scheme approval was biased, and so the proposals should go back to the drawing board.

If the sheme was approved, households would have to pay £30 to park one vehicle, £110 to park two, £310 for three, and up to £50 on visitor parking passes. Just over 50 per cent of the people who returned questionnaires from the two pilot scheme areas were in favour of the zones. Of the 53,000 questionnaires sent out across the city this summer, 13,000 were returned.

Supporters of the pilots say they are in desperate need of the zones to deal with ongoing parking problems.

They argue emergency and waste vehicles can’t get to their properties because parking congestion is so bad, and that commuters frequently make it impossible for them to park anywhere near their homes.

Stephen Perry is one of a number of Clifton residents who have issued a statement condemning the Tories and those from o from outside the pilot area who have campaigned against the RPS.

He said: “We are dismayed the Conservatives on Bristol council have ‘called in’ the cabinet decision to go ahead with the introduction of the Residents’ Parking Scheme in two pilot areas. Are the residents of these two areas now just pawns in a bigger political game?

“In the Brandon Hill and Clifton zone we are on the frontline with cars parking in our streets as their owners work, shop or live in the so-called CPZ (Controlled Parking Zone) in our city centre. As a result, emergency vehicles can’t gain access to our streets, nor can vital service vehicles, like refuse disposal... . Residents sometimes can’t park near their own homes.

“The ‘No’ campaign is fighting on a city-wide basis stirring up false fears that everyone in the city will have to have parking schemes eventually, when this just isn’t true. The campaign is trumping up spurious objections to the local authority’s consultation process as a tactic to delay implementation. They purport to be out there defending the ‘people’. Well, they are not. Not us anyway. They are defending their own narrow interests.

“They will oppose any parking scheme, however carefully devised and directed, as a matter of principle. They will always say ‘No, no, no’ to anything the council puts forward. The result is we who live adjacent to the central zone will continue to suffer.

“Does the ‘No’ campaign care about our predicament? No. Do the Conservatives care about our predicament? It would seem not.”

Opponents of the RPS say pilot schemes would be the thin end of the wedge which would lead to Bristol becoming one big parking zone.

The special call-in committee will decide whether the call-in should be dropped or whether the decision should be sent back to the full council or the cabinet.