RESIDENTS have appealed to councillors to help resolve a parking nightmare prompted by charges imposed by Burnley General Hospital bosses.

Highway experts admit that parking difficulties, especially in Fleetwood Road, have escalated since East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust drafted in private firm Legion to manage a pay and display system on their car parks.

Borough and county councillors approved a stop-gap solution, providing two bollards to improve motorists’s sightlines at the junction of Fleetwood Road and Briercliffe Road, But 14 residents have petitioned the Lancashire Local Burnley committee, the joint forum for borough and county council affairs, protesting that the measure does not go far enough to remedy the problem.

The householders have also urged the council to put pressure on hospital bosses to reduce parking fees, to ease the situation outside their homes.

Shirley Taggart, 50, of Fleetwood Road, said: “It is virtually impossible to park outside your own house from 7am until 10pm.

“The cars are jammed in along the road all the way until the turning to the main road, it is dangerous and there are so many near-misses.

“The visitors are only about for two hours so that isn’t so bad, but staff are parked here all day, I can’t believe there isn’t a car park for them at the hospital.”

Her husband Terry, 52, added: “Nobody wants to pay for parking so there all use these streets.

“I go to take the grandchildren to school at 7.30am and when I get back I have to park on one of the side streets.”

Staff are said to have contributed to the problem and councillors urged them to use a designated overflow car park at Rakehead Playing Fields rather than residential roads.

Highways official Ray Bennett said: “The majority of vehicles parked along Fleetwood Road during the day belong to staff and visitors attending Burnley Hospital.

“The parking issue has escalated considerably since the introduction of a charging regime for the hospital car parks and expansion of the hospital itself.

“Vehicles park on both sides of the carriageway and on the footways. This results in both a reduction to single lane of the carriageway and obstruction of pedestrian access along the footways.”

One cyclist has already suffered minor injuries, during an incident last December, when visibility was reduced because of parked cars.

County engineers had already suggested introducing a no waiting restriction in Fleetwood Road, between 8am and 6.30pm, every day.

This suggestion was vetoed by councillors, who opted for fresh talks with hospital bosses instead.

Highways officials insist the problem remains and have put the issue on the agenda for the Lancashire Local committee, which meets at Burnley Town Hall today (Monday) from 7pm.