The owner of an Italian restaurant in Brighouse claims the new Sainsbury store in the town centre is causing havoc for her business.

In the summer Rita Massimo, of the La Romantica in Phoenix Street, threatened to take legal action against the company for loss of trade caused during building work on the store.

Now Mrs Massimo claims workers from the supermarket are hogging all the spaces at the Calderdale Council-owned free Mill Lane car park, leaving her customers unable to park there. The main entrance to the restaurant is from the car park and therefore popular with the customers.

Mrs Massimo said: "When the car park re-opened on November 16, I thought 'great - we can get back to normal' after putting with up the mess and disruption for four months. But we are back to square one. I feel really fed up and annoyed.''

The store, which opened on November 21, has a 200-space car park and employs 200 workers.

Mrs Massimo said: "There used to be about 70 spaces in the Mill Lane car park, but now there are just 22 because of the landscaping carried out and it is always full. I understand the supermarket staff are not allowed to use the store's car park until after 4.30pm so many of them park in Mill Lane. They leave their cars there all day and don't move them to the supermarket car park after 4.30pm. My customers have complained about not being able to park outside the restaurant. It's particularly bad on Sundays at lunchtime. We recently had a party of 30 people and half ended up parking at the back and the rest at Sainsbury's.''

A Sainsbury spokesman said: "The Mill Lane site is a public car park and our staff are entitled to park there as much as the restaurant customers.''

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.