ANGRY shopkeepers are to be deprived of a car park they have used for more than a decade in the centre of Winchester.

The city council has approved a prohibition of parking order, which will prevent traders leaving their cars in the Casson Block Yard, at Upper Brook Street, from November 1.

In future the yard can only be used for loading and unloading activities associated with trade or business in adjoining premises.

Giorgio Petretic, proprietor of Giorgio's Italian restaurant, said the ban would have a serious effect on the way he runs his business.

"We have been using the car park for more than ten years and now I will have to drive around Winchester looking for a parking space.

"I don't have to start here until 10am but all the parking spaces in Winchester are filled by then.

"We don't know why the council are doing this. It will cause a lot of inconvenience and I think it is wrong.

"The council probably just wants to make money out of us by making us use the other car parks."

Karen Elkins, who has worked in the local hairdressing salon for ten years, said the traders appealed against the proposal last year, but to no avail. She said: "It is going to cause a lot of inconvenience.

"The car park is not used by our customers, it is only used by people working in the shops here. "It is now going to cost me £4 a day to park elsewhere," she complained.

A spokesman for the Soho bikini and tanning salon said it was "stupid" of the council to suddenly stop the traders from using the yard.

"I don't use it very often, but I think people working in the shops along here should have parking facilities," she added.

But a spokesman for the city council stressed that there had never been any parking rights at the yard, which is owned by the authority.

"At various times in the past we have helped out the businesses by granting special licences for parking in the yard, but they have been regularly abused to the extent that emergency vehicles may not be able to gain access if they need to.

"Parking also blocks an electricity sub-station which serves a major part of the city and it has also forced the loading and unloading of vehicles on to the main road.

"We have discussed the situation over many years with the leaseholders, but we have failed to come up with a satisfactory conclusion. "We have now reached the end of our tether.

"The new order will be effective between 8am and 10pm Mondays to Saturdays."

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