Businesses believe plans to increase parking at Crossflatts Railway Station, near Bingley, could alleviate problems with commuters leaving their cars on residential streets.

A planning application has been submitted to Bradford Council to increase car parking spaces at the railway station from 100 to 162.

West Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority (Metro) has said the application is part of a £23.24 million bid to improve rail services submitted to the Department for Transport last year.

Steve Dickson, licensee of the Royal Hotel in Keighley Road, Crossflatts, said extra parking spaces had recently been made by the bridge on Keighley Road.

He said: “People were parking on the side streets and residents couldn’t get out. So what they have done is allowed a bit more parking on the main road, but there’s still not enough.

“A lot of people seem to drive to the station, leave their car there and go to work on the train, so they definitely need more car parking spaces.

“It does make sense to be honest that there’s a bit more parking because there seems to be more and more people using the train to commute to Leeds or Bradford.”

Rod Dewhurst, who works at Stuart Price Butchers in Lime Court, Crossflatts, said: “It would be a great idea to increase the parking there because there’s nowhere to park on the nearby roads.

“They do park on the main road but it gets filled up in no time and, within no time, the residential streets are filled up as well.

“It leaves no parking spaces for customers who come in cars, which quite a lot of our customers do.”

Tim Calow, chairman of the Aire Valley Rail Users’ Group, said: “The Aire Valley service is excellent and extremely popular.

“At the moment there are two constraints. One is there aren’t enough seats on the trains and the other is that as soon as you get to 7.30am a lot of the car parks along the line are full with commuters, so it’s very difficult for people later in the day to access the railway.

“So we would be delighted with these extra 62 car parking spaces at Crossflatts.”