A petition against pay and display parking plans for Falmouth and Penryn has gained more than 1,000 signatures since it was set up less than a week ago.

Organiser Toby Budd set up the petition to fight what he sees as plans by Cornwall Council to add pay and display machines to "most of the free roadside parking currently available in Falmouth and Penryn."

The council announced at the end of October that Falmouth and Penryn would be one of seven areas to be considered for residents' and pay and display parking areas, and plans it unveiled show almost all free unallocated parking removed from both town centres.

In Falmouth the streets being targeted are: Bar Road, Berkeley Vale, Grove Place, High Street, Killigrew Street, Kimberley Park Road, New Street, Pendennis Head, Queen Mary Road and Swanpool Road. In Penryn, pay and display would be introduced in Broad Street, Commercial Road and Upper and Lower Market Street.

Residents' parking zones are planned in Falmouth around Pendennis Rise, in most of central Falmouth between Killigrew Street, Dracaena Avenue and Western Terrace, Melvill Road and the railway line, excluding Woodlane and the vicinity of the campus. Another area could extend around Trevethan Road, Harbour and Erisey Terraces, Penwerris Lane and Terrace, and down to Dunstanville Terrace.

And in Penryn there could be resident's parking zones in the Saracen area, around Calver Close and Western Place, in streets either side of the railway station, and around Greenwood Road and Crescent.

In a letter to the Packet, former Cornwall Council employee Paul Harding has warned that if any scheme is introduced it would be very difficult to rescind, while tariffs could go up and shoppers end up priced out of the town centres.

He wrote: "Once a scheme is introduced it is virtually impossible to remove such a scheme and a main worry is it becomes a budget line on the council's budget books and you can be certain it will not remain at £50 or so for very long, it will creep up after a few years to hundreds of pounds per parking place."

He has also noted that there are only 900 spaces in Falmouth car parks, adding: "It will certainly put a lot of people off coming to Falmouth."

In his petition, Mr Budd has written: "If this goes ahead you will have no option but to pay for parking if you want to visit Falmouth. Making it even harder for local shops to compete with out of town stores."

John Butler commented on the petition: "Local people have enough to contend with, low wages and high living costs. Taking away the little free parking that is left will just add to the pressure."

And Sarah Smith added: "Cornwall Council are insane if they think that the people of Falmouth will agree to paying to park on the streets that they live in."

An event for members of the public to view and discuss the pay and display proposals will take place on Thursday from 11am to 8pm in the council chamber at Falmouth Municipal Buildings, on the Moor.

The petition can be found at change.org/p/cornwall-councill-stop-cornwall-councill-putting-new-p-d-machines-in-falmouth-and-penryn