Ashby de la Zouch Town Council will continue to press for the removal of car parking spaces in Market Street that have been causing traffic bottlenecks - despite Leicestershire County Council turning down the request.

Councillors last month raised concerns over congestion caused by vehicles stopping in Market Street so that people can collect takeaways.

They argued that the creation of four extra parking spaces outside the Fish Inn - at the shop owner's request - meant that, often, two sets of vehicles could not get past at the same time.

The Town Council's planning committee had agreed to write to Leicestershire County Council in an attempt to get the spaces removed.

But County Hall's response was that the parking bays had been in use for five years - and to remove them would be "unfair to the owner of the fish and chip shop who had fully funded the parking bays even though they were not solely for the use of his business."

The County Council added that removing the spaces would cause inconvenience to businesses who rely on valuable on-street parking being close to their premises. 

Ashby councillors responded at the planning committee meeting held earlier this month.

Committee chair, Cllr Dave Bigby, said that the Transport Officer at Leicestershire County Council had missed some of the points that the Town Council had made.

Ashby councillors acknowledged that additional car parking spaces had been installed in the hope that extra parking spaces would reduce illegal parking but this had not worked, and Cllr Bigby suggested that the Town Council writes back to the County Council to ensure this area has the appropriate traffic enforcement carried out.

He also said that it was not the Town Council that had asked for the additional car parking spaces but the owner of the fish and chip shop, who wanted the support of the Town Council.

Cllr Pejman Zamani added that he found the response from the County Council to be irrelevant as the car parking spaces do not work. 

He said drivers park in the spaces for the whole evening, people wanting to collect food then park illegally, higher up Market Street on the double yellow lines. 

Cllr Zamani explained that he had spoken to the owner of the premises, not the tenants. He said the owner did not have a problem with the removal of car parking spaces, understanding that this was likely to be a benefit to the shop. 

Cllr Bigby asked if Cllr Zamani could obtain written approval of the removal of the car parking spaces in writing from the owner of the fish and chip shop and then the Town Council will write back to Leicestershire County Council to, again, request the removal of the car parking spaces.