Traders at one of Bradford's longest running car boot sales are fighting a bid to kick them off their site.

Some traders who hold their sales at Ashley Mills, at the Cooper Lane trading estate in Bradford, have received enforcement notices from Bradford Council ordering them to stop trading.

It follows the Council's refusal of a retrospective planning permission for retail on the site last October.

But the message from the traders, who use portable buildings on the site on Sundays and Wednesdays, was: "It's business as normal."

The sale organisers said they had submitted an official appeal against the notices to the Department of Transport and Environment for the Regions and until it was dealt with they would carry on.

They have also put in a separate appeal over the refusal of planning consent for the sales.

The committee turned down the application to use the car park for shopping because it did not comply with the Council's retail policy which protects existing shopping centres. There were also complaints about disturbances.

Today Pat Rawlinson, who has not received an enforcement notice because her second hand clothes shop is within the mill complex, said hundreds of people would be devastated if the sales were stopped.

She said her own business also depended on the crowds drawn in by the car boot traders.

"We are talking about people's livelihoods, and hardship for families who can buy things they need cheap. These sales have been going on for about 20 years. We are like one family and people have grown up here."

But ward councillor Jack Womersley (Lab, Queensbury) said he had been inundated with complaints. A fire engine had been unable to get to an emergency call last year because of congestion and there were severe parking problems in the area.

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