A COUNCILLOR is warning cars could one day be banned from a village centre to put the brakes on a spiralling parking problem.

Whalley could be thrown into chaos, claims a local councillor, after a brewery announced it is to ban motorists from a popular pub car park in the village centre from Tuesday.

Shoppers and visitors to the doctors, dentist and adult education centre use the Whalley Arms car park, but Whitbread bosses claim people are parking all day and causing inconvenience to pub staff and customers.

They are fed up with motorists using the site as an all day car park and want to reserve it for pub users only.

The car park has been leased from Whitbread by Ribble Valley Council for the past ten years, but council bosses have said they can't afford to renew the agreement.

They wanted to introduce parking charges to help pay for the new lease, but traders bombarded them with letters objecting to the proposed pay and display scheme.

Whalley Coun Joyce Holgate, a local shopkeeper and Chamber of Trade member, said the closure of the car park would cause chaos and nearby on-street parking. "If an agreement can't be reached with the brewery, some other form of parking will have to be provided. The village centre will be chaos without the car park.

"It is to close from midnight to 11am and we are very grateful to the brewery that it will partially remain open, but I can see the day coming when people will have to park outside the village and walk in.

"Residents already complain to me about excessive parking in their streets and now it will get a lot worse," she said.

The council's chief engineer, Graham Jagger, said he was hopeful an agreement with the brewery could still be reached.

"We looked at charging for use of the car park as a way of raising the cash to pay for the new lease, but it didn't go down very well with traders and residents.

"Now Whitbread has earmarked the site for use by its customers only and the way things stand it will close from Tuesday.

"We are very committed to providing a parking area in Whalley and are still hopeful that we can strike an eleventh hour deal with the brewery, but it may have to involve a pay and display scheme," he said.

A spokesman for Whitbread said the needs of customers and staff at the Whalley Arms had to come first.

"We appreciate that the village has parking problems, but the purpose of the car park is to serve customers and staff of the Whalley Arms.

"Even the manager of the pub often struggles to park there. But discussions with Ribble Valley Council are continuing with a view to reaching a solution for the benefit of everyone," she said.

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