A CONTROVERSIAL 400-metre bus lane will be staying, despite angry protests by residents.

A public meeting was called over the stretch in Preston Old Road, Blackburn, outside Witton Park.

And Michael Lee, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, turned up and told them: “There is no option to get rid of the bus lane.

“The bus lane is here and it is going to stay.”

He was invited to the meeting by The Residents of Witton Park Group at St Mark’s Conservative Club.

Residents said they had not been consulted properly about the £500,000 project to turn the section into three lanes.

They are also angry that they may now have to pay £50 for a parking permit.

Their third main complaint is that the bus lane has made the road too narrow, leaving their cars being clipped by passing vehicles.

Chair of the meeting, Joe Balko, said: “The council hasn’t properly consulted with us.

“They’re telling us what they’re doing. They’re not talking to us.

“Everybody’s getting nervous. Cars are being bumped up on the pavements. Wagons can’t pass each other and buses are struggling.

“It’s 400 metres long. You can’t expand it east, you can’t extend it west, so what’s the point?”

The majority of residents at the meeting said they thought the consultation document handed to them in November last year was misleading. They say it failed to mention that their parking bays would be narrowed.

Coun Lee admitted that the consultation should have mentioned the narrowing of parking bays, and said that was down to the traffic engineer.

He said: “The traffic engineer doesn’t see parking as a problem. He wants to see traffic moving freely and he thinks he’s done his job and also kept on street parking.

“It was nothing sinister. It was an oversight, not something to stop people complaining.

“That road is no narrower than many others in the town.

“Most cars in Redlam are parking on the curb.

“The road here is no less than in Redlam and that doesn’t stop the traffic flow as you insinuated.”

The bus lane scheme is separate to the controversial Pennine Reach project which aims to link Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn through a bus lane.

The Witton scheme is designed to improve traffic flow in that stretch.