Yorkshire Television has apologised after Otley traders and shoppers were left without anywhere to park on one of the busiest days of the week.

Workers and visitors were left fighting for spaces in the town's hard-pressed car parks last Friday after three roads were coned off by police to leave the area free for filming.

Manor Street, Courthouse Street and Riverdale Road - usually full of parked cars - were empty of cars from the early hours of the morning until, at the latest 9pm, while scenes were filmed for Yorkshire Television's Heartbeat.

Residents who normally fight to park outside their homes were delighted to see the roads empty but others who use the roads when the car parks are full found themselves with nowhere to park.

Ray Johnson, of Manor Books and Music, Clapgate, said he could not understand why the busiest day of the week had been chosen to carry out the filming.

He said: "I cannot think of a worse time for them to do it than a Friday. There were people going round North Street car park trying to find somewhere to park but they couldn't. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was a Wednesday, but Friday is just the worse day."

James Muirhead, Heartbeat's assistant locations manager, offered his sincere apologies to anyone put out by the filming and added they normally made every effort not to film on busy market days. I am very sorry we had to do the filming on a Friday. We normally do everything we can to not film on market days, but this time there was nothing we could do."

He added a more car-free area than normal was needed because the crew was filming a long shot involving actors walking and driving along a road.

Detective constable Dave Clark, of Weetwood Police, said he sympathised but there was nothing the police could do to stop the filming from taking place.

"The traffic situation would really just degenerate into total chaos without the cones," he added.

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