PLANS to designate part of a Dorchester car park for hospital staff could drive away shoppers, councillors warned today.

Extra parking is being lined up to ease congestion for patients at Dorset County Hospital.

West Dorset General Hospitals NHS Trust wants to buy season tickets, which would allow up to 125 members of staff to use the Fairfield car park in Dorchester and free up parking bays at the hospital for visitors and patients frustrated by the lack of spaces.

Members of the council's executive committee will decide later today whether or not to give the proposal the green light.

But Dorchester councillors Alan Beard and David Barrett fear that in the long term it could deter people from visiting the town altogether.

And now they are calling on the district council to take a wider look at the way parking in the town and across the district is managed.

Coun Beard said: "The approach of the hospital to the district council for the use of Fairfield car park would only provide a short-term solution.

"If the district council agrees to this request there is no way it could be extended beyond 12 months because there is an impending severe shortage of car parking provision in Dorchester.

"Whatever surplus capacity there may be at present at Fairfield will more than be absorbed by the brewery site development."

Coun Beard said he hoped that a travel plan currently being drawn up by the health trust would look at all options including the possibility of using the football ground for a park and ride scheme.

Coun Barrett said: "We need a proper strategy if Dorchester is going to take advantage of the commercial prosperity that's being handed to them on a plate with things like the brewery development.

"Dorchester is also a town of small shopkeepers. They are dependent for their livelihood on people shopping in the town, but these shoppers will just move on if there is nowhere for them to park."

Coun Barrett has submitted a notice of motion to the district council calling for urgent consideration of the car parking needs of every town in the district including Dorchester.