MOTORISTS in Cross Hills are being threatened with wheel clamping at a council-owned car park.

The threats is being made not by the council, but by Co-op bosses.

Signs warning car owners that they will be clamped if they park for more than 60 minutes have appeared in the car park off Main Street near the new Co-op store.

The notices have angered Craven District Council chiefs who own the majority of car parking spaces.

They have also placed a restriction on six of the Co-op owned spaces to secure them for use by shoppers not visiting the store.

Coun Philip Barrett claimed the Co-op had ignored rules set down when the new store was granted planning permission.

"It's totally against the spirit of what was intended," he told the Herald. "It's so intimidating and it could stop people from coming into Cross Hills.

"When the council and the Co-op got together, there was a bit of give and take, but this is all take and no give."

Craven District Council agreed to let the store use its car park because it did not have enough spaces to service the new store.

Co-op's chief executive Peter Marks said that the signs had been put up in order to protect customers using the store.

He said: "This is our car park and it is a customer's car park for customer's use.

"Customers can't use it if it's full of people who aren't shopping in the store. Those signs are there for our car parking spaces to protect our car parking spaces."

There is no segregation in the car park between spaces owned by the Co-op and those owned by Craven District Council.

Coun Barrett said he had been inundated with complaints about the signs.

He added: "This is so heavy handed. I can understand them wanting to protect their own spaces right outside the store's entrance but I'm sure they could've reached a compromise."

Craven District Council's property manager Michael Birdsall said he had written to the Co-op about the issue.

"Out of the 70 spaces, Craven District Council owns 44 of them and we put a restrictive covenant on six of the others so they could be used by the public," he said.

"The signs are in front of these six spaces which would lead most people to believe that they can't park there for more than an hour.

"We're also concerned that these signs give the impression that they affect the whole of the car park."

Mr Marks said that to the best of his knowledge the council had not contacted the company.