FUNERAL staff face having to carry coffins across a busy main road because new traffic rules ban them from parking outside a parish church.

The vicar at the church said the move, which will also force coffin bearers to park their hearses in a loading bay, are "utterly pointless" and "totally disrespectful to the dead".

Canon Philip Dearden, of the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Church Street, Clitheroe, has urged highways bosses to reconsider introducing the "no loading and no waiting" enforcement.

And a local funeral director said the new rules were "insensitive" and "ludicrous".

Today Lancashire County Council highways planners said they would consider changing the regulations, part of a wider traffic management scheme, before it is approved in September.

The plans have been drawn up as part of a scheme to introduce 54 parking permits for Clitheroe town centre residents, as well as calming through-traffic in the town.

At present hearses arriving at church park at the top of Church Brow on the double yellow lines.

But the upgrading of the double yellow lines to strictly "no waiting" does not leave any facility for the parking.

Canon Dearden said: "I have written to the planners at County Hall to explain how strongly myself and my parishioners feel about this.

"I also live on Church Street and applaud the introduction of the residents' parking permits they too need to be looked after. But this seems to have nothing to do with the scheme and we do not need it.

"It will be totally disrespectful and will cause offence to bereaved families and friends.

"How will they be able to follow the hearse in the funeral party if it is forced to park up the road in a loading bay?

"The plans say that disabled people will not be allowed to park outside the church either, but the only disabled bay they have provided is right down at the end of the road at the bottom of a steep hill."

Church warden Pat Houldsworth added: "We cannot have a situation where funeral processions are prohibited from parking outside our church while they unload the coffin.

"The nearest spot they could legally park is a long way away and is certainly too far to carry a coffin.

"And then there will also be the anxiety of finding a space to park will they just have to drive round and round until one becomes available?"

Brian Price, of Brian Price and Sons Funeral Directors, Chatburn, arranges most of the funerals at the church and said the introduction of "no waiting and no loading" restrictions was "absolutely ludicrous".

He said: "This is very insensitive. This is a time when people are at their lowest and they don't need the situation being made worse.

"Funeral directors run on tight schedules and we can't be driving round waiting to take the coffin away again to the crematorium."

The county council scheme will be administered by Ribble Valley Council and supervised by existing parking attendants.

Ribble Valley Borough Council leader John Hill said: "We do not want the scheme to be trounced at the first hurdle, but similarly the church's views must be put before the county council and a common sense compromise be worked out."

Martin Nugent, traffic and development engineer at the county council, said: "If the church needs exemptions for hearses to stay for just a short time outside the church we will look at ways we can try and accommodate that in our future revised plans."