Residents and councillors have lost the fight to stop car parking fees being enforced at Liskeard Railway Station.
Commuters will have to pay £2 a day to park at the station, despite a last-ditch attempt to stop the charges by Caradon District Council.
A meeting took place between Caradon councillors and First Great Western (FGW) on Wednesday to discuss the charges. Originally, the fees were due to start on February 1, but this was put back until March because of a delay in installing the ticket machines.
Caradon's leader John Turner raised concerns about the effect the scheme will have on residents near the station and the potential increase in road traffic.
Cllr Turner said: 'I am extremely disappointed that we have been unable to persuade First Great Western to withdraw the proposals to charge for parking. A considerable amount of money was made available through Cornwall County Council to upgrade and improve the parking facilities at Liskeard station when Wessex Trains held the franchise, and at that time it was agreed in principle that in return for this no parking charges would be levied. First Great Western's policy is somewhat different, and they will not agree to continue this arrangement.'
Mike Critchley, councillor for Liskeard South, has been against the plans from the start. He said: 'There is something wrong when the taxpayers of Cornwall have paid £600,000 to refurbish the car parks so that people can have free car parking "forever" and the facility is suddenly withdrawn. Surely the charges are the biggest disincentive to use public transport on a daily basis anyone can think of.'
Cornwall County Council installed lighting at the station car parks in 2004/2005 at a cost of £800,000, but said this was taken from EU funding and not solely from Cornish taxpayers.
For the period of the Wessex trains franchise, the promise was that no fees for parking would be levied and when FGW took over, this principle was carried forward with the understanding that congestion might change the circumstances.
Residents are concerned that more cars will be parking along the road and outside their homes, although there is a council run car park nearby, which has a cheaper daily fee of £1.50 per day.
Jim Candy, who chairs the planning and local economy panel on Caradon District Council, said: 'I want people to boycott the station car park and use Rapsons car park nearby.
'I will challenge this decision using the Sustainable Communities Act as it's unreasonable for the Government to expect people to use the train and cut their carbon emissions when it will be leaving them more out of pocket than driving their cars.'
FGW has a commercial policy in place to charge at all their car parks around the country. FGW defended its decision, stating that the charge will go towards ongoing maintenance costs.
However, the use of the car park and train passengers will be monitored once the charges are in place and FGW will review its plans if there is a decline in passenger numbers using the trains.
Julian Crow, general manager for the West of England for FGW, said: 'We will listen carefully to the concerns of the council and monitor if there is more traffic and congestion around the streets. We don't want this decision to affect local people, but the charge is a fairly modest £2 per day and local train travel in the region is thriving.
'We are introducing a better customer service system by May and FGW has spent £14m refurbishing local train services across the country, so we are making improvements.'
Charges of £2 per day, £10 per week, £37.50 per month and £370 per year will start from Friday March 27.