Aldi have responded to a letter from Chris Green MP, which raised local residents’ concerns about ongoing parking difficulties in Westhoughton.
Local residents had contacted the Bolton West and Atherton MP with their complaints about workers and delivery vehicles from the Aldi site taking up multiple car parking spaces at a time on the public car park at Bolton Road, Westhoughton.
This not only has impacted upon local residents wishing to access the local high street but on businesses also who had got in touch with the MP, reporting that the lack of available car parking spaces has had a knock-on effect to customer levels.
In the response to Mr Green’s letter, Aldi reassured him that the Site Manager has informed contractors to not use the car park for a delivery drop off point or to park their vehicles.
They also confirmed that their plans to build a new public car park in Library Street, which is expected to be open in early December.
Mr Green also wrote to Bolton Council asking them to consider opening the overflow car park at the end of Market Street Westhoughton whilst the works take place but is yet to receive a response.
Mr Green said: “Although I welcome the Aldi development, it should not be coming at the expense of local residents and businesses whilst the site is being built.
“Bolton Council have once again shown that they have not thought through the implications of another development, which has had a major knock on effect on parking in Westhoughton.
“I am however pleased to see that Aldi has listened to the concerns of local residents and businesses and have issued an apology for the problems they have been experienced.
“I hope that an improvement in the availability in car parking spaces on the Bolton Road public car park is seen soon and if this isn’t seen, I urge residents to get in touch with me so I can raise this again with Aldi and Bolton Council.”
Cllr Kirk-Robinson added: “"In the run-up to Christmas there will be even more people are using cars to get into town for their shopping.
“While Bolton council should have foreseen this problem and taken steps to sort it before it happened, I very much welcome the swift response from Aldi to remedy the issue.”
Residents can get in touch by emailing their concerns to [email protected] in regards to this or any other matter you require his assistance with.