A councillor is appealing for a lay-by to be built to protect residents' cars on an Otley speed trap road.

Councillor Graham Kirkland (Lib Dem, Otley and Wharfedale) is backing residents' pleas for parking spaces to be provided outside their homes.

People who live on Bradford Road are seeking funding to pay for a lay-by - but council chiefs have warned that they will not contribute and that any improvements will have to be funded by householders.

Presently they have nowhere to park their cars, because if they leave them on the road then they have to keep their lights on overnight because it is a 40mph road.

People living between the roundabout and Ellar Ghyll have to either park their cars on side streets or on a muddy grass verge.

Coun Kirkland said: "Residents can park on the road but as it is a 40mph road they have to leave their lights on all night, so they park on the grass verge but it is very muddy.

"For quite a while they have been trying to get the highways department to make a lay-by so people can park off the road.

"Many people have high properties and it would be impossible for them to park on their driveways.

"People have been parking in the Westbourne Hotel car park, but it has been refurbished and they have been told to stop parking there.

"Therefore we want to rehash the idea of having a lay-by between house numbers 178 and 208."

Coun Kirkland and residents met with a Council highways officer on Monday to look at the possibility of creating a lay-by where the muddy grass verge is at the moment.

The Council has previously quoted £300,000 for the scheme, according to Coun Kirkland, and residents are now trying to raise the funds themselves.

Coun Kirkland added: "It is a very unusual situation.

"It would be impossible to build driveways and there is no other similar road in Otley.

"If Leeds City Council was to fund it, it would cost a quarter of a million pounds and they would have to drop the curbs on the road.

"They would also have to make the tarmac area strong enough to hold a 44 tonne lorry.

"If the residents do it themselves they could dig out the grass verge and lay a thin layer of tarmac, which would cost a lot less."

A Press spokesman for Leeds City Council said it was not something the authority would consider doing and the residents would have to raise the funds to do it themselves.