TRADERS who paid for a parking bay for customers today hit out at council chiefs for turning it into a no-parking zone.

The furious traders have now called into question the decision after a 'No Parking at Any Time' sign was put up at the bay outside Barclays Bank in Market Street, Bacup.

The restrictions now mean that nobody will be able to park at the site from Monday to Saturday between 8am and 6pm.

Local councillor Christine Lamb has branded the move ridiculous and called for the sign to be taken down.

And Lancashire County Council has now launched an investigation to find out if it has made a mistake.

Coun Lamb said: "The traders are absolutely furious and rightly so as they were the ones who paid for this parking bay a couple of years ago for the benefit of customers.

"It was never meant as a long-stay solution, it was designed to stop customers having to park on the double yellow lines to nip into the bank or to use the cash machine or the off-licence."

Kay Helliwell, owner of A&M Jewellers, Market Street, said: "We have been told that when the grass verge outside the bank was transformed into a parking bay in the late 1990s a Road Traffic Act was not passed for it to become a parking bay which is why the council have been able to do this."

A spokesman for Lancashire County Council's highways department said: "This is an issue which may have been caught up in the transfer of highways from Rossendale Borough Council to Lancashire County Council.

"If it's wrong then we will act upon it. We would ask people to obey the signs until we have clarification."