Drivers of "gas-guzzling" cars could soon pay the price for polluting the town after the council threatened to start penalising vehicles with high emissions.

Watford Borough Council announced it intended to find ways of charging large, heavily polluting vehicles after carrying out a review of the town's controlled parking zones (CPZs).

Speaking at the meeting of the council's cabinet on Monday, portfolio holder for housing and human resources, Andy Wylie, said: "There is quite a debate on the legality of this issue (penalising polluting vehicles) but we are certainly going to investigate how to do it."

Councils in other parts of the country, such as Richmond, have already implemented policies to target the owners of gas guzzlers such as 4x4s.

Watford Borough Council also announced the town's CPZs will continue to operate as they currently do and that further consultation will be carried out into the prospect of extended zones into neighbouring areas.

The review coincided with the scheme's ten year anniversary and saw about 1,500 residents respond to the Your Parking, Your Choice consultation.

Residents living inside the CPZ were asked whether they felt the scheme was working, if restrictions should be brought in on Sundays and whether the scheme should be extended later into the evening.

Those living outside the zone, or in areas with match day restrictions only, were consulted to find if they wanted to extend the scheme into their roads.

However, the review found where restrictions were in place residents were "broadly happy with them" and "not a great deal of change is needed".

Councillors rejected calls from some residents for restrictions to be extended to 8.30pm and for individual bays to be painted outside houses.

Councillor Wylie, added: "We think putting individual bays outside houses is a pretty bad idea in Watford.

"It would take out in the average West Watford street somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of the available parking and of course parking outside the lines is an criminal offence."

The number of permits per household will stay the same in all zones, with a limit of two permits per household.

The number of visitor vouchers in the full scheme will also remain at 400 hours.

The enforcement end time will also remain at 6.30pm.

While welcoming the review as "long overdue", the Labour group admitted it was disappointed the parking restrictions were not extended until later in the evening.