RESIDENTS of a congested Cleveleys road have been forced out of parking bays by a council-imposed ban, according to a concerned resident.

Doreen Wightman, who lives in Melbourne Avenue, said she was amazed to see parking bays that had been used by residents being "turned into bus stops" by Blackpool Borough Council on Sunday.

She said council workers also put up signs reading "No stopping at any time except for buses" and she feared residents will have to compete with civil servants from the nearby Norcross site for even fewer parking spaces.

Doreen, 49, said: "Not only can people not access their homes during the day because of the Norcross staff, now they cannot park out of office times and at weekends because of the bus stops. We have a lot of elderly people living here. Where do the council expect home helps, social workers, doctors, meals-on-wheels and nurses to park? Norcross people can't park there, but on the other hand neither can anyone else."

She wants the council to look at the estate as a whole, with a view to providing more parking areas somewhere within it.

Anchorsholme Ward Councillor Jon Bamborough said the bus stops themselves were not new, but the lines showing where they are and the full-time parking ban are.

"The Council have had this order pending for quite a while. They are trying to react to a problem created by somebody else," he said. "But I had hoped that the Council would wait until parking restrictions were put down.

"The restrictions that we had in mind were that between the hours of 10am and 4pm you could only park for a maximum of one hour, but that has not happened. As usual, it boils down to a lack of money."

He asked residents to be patient and said: "The council has set up a sub-committee to look at the whole question of car parking around the Government sites. It could be that we will end up with some sort of residents' parking."

Discussions with Norcross management are also ongoing, he said, adding that a proposed bus service running along the eastern boundary of the borough could serve Norcross, cutting down on the number of parked cars.