Traders have been threatened with £25 parking tickets if they continue to park in residents'-only spaces in Haworth Main Street.

Bradford council has issued more than 80 parking permits for just 27 spaces.

It has demanded the return of several permits issued by mistake to people with lock-up shops. Officials were alerted to the error following a row between residents in a newly-built property and people running businesses in premises over 90 years old.

Now angry traders have been told their vehicles could be towed away if they continue to park in the residents' bays. They have asked the council to draw up a new traffic regulation order to replace that in force since 1977.

Stephen Ferguson, who has an antiques and collectables business, has even suggested Main Street should become a traffic-free zone. He says: "It is a shambles and we are fed up. Parking problems have gone on for years but no one does anything about it."

Mr Ferguson and his shopkeeper colleagues feel it unfair of the council to issue permits to residents with at least six off-street parking spaces available while denying them to business people who have nowhere else to leave their vehicles. He is annoyed that the so-called residents'-only spaces vacated by traders are now being filled by visitors who fail to see the small signs.

"The law ought to be enforced and the council should provide secure parking for traders and visitors," he says. "They can't just clear everyone out and make no provision. It is madness.

"The injustice is that they are taking permits away from one type of business and giving them to another. The rules need to be updated - and quickly."

His wife Catherine adds: "We are paying our rates and bringing business into the village. And we need to keep our vehicles in view. All we want to do is run our businesses in peace."

Competition for available spaces at the lower end of Main Street is fierce. John Gray, who lives in the new Park Top Cottages, says: "It is fairly chaotic. But the threat of having all the permits withdrawn seems like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."

Worth Valley Labour councillor Mike Young says the council will look at reviewing the traffic order but it is a difficult and sensitive matter. "There will never be enough spaces because there are too many vehicles," he says. "The council has to restrict spaces to a feasible number and there has to be give and take between the people involved."

Opinion, page 10

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