THIS week we take a look back at what the Lancashire Telegraph was reporting 20 years ago.

A councillor was warning cars could one day be banned from a village centre to put the brakes on a spiralling parking problem.

Whalley faced being thrown into chaos, after a brewery announced it was to ban motorists from a popular pub car park in the village centre.

Shoppers and visitors to the doctors, dentist and adult education centre used the Whalley Arms car park, but brewery bosses said people were parking all day and causing inconvenience to pub staff and customers.

They were fed up with motorists using the site as an all day car park and wanted to reserve it for pub users only.

The car park had been leased from Whitbread by Ribble Valley Council – but council bosses said they could not afford to renew the agreement.

They wanted to introduce parking charges to help pay for the new lease, but traders bombarded them with letters objecting to the proposed pay and display scheme.

Whalley Coun Joyce Holgate, a local shopkeeper and Chamber of Trade member, said the closure of the car park would cause chaos and nearby on-street parking. “If an agreement can’t be reached with the brewery, some other form of parking will have to be provided. The village centre will be chaos without the car park.

“It is to close from midnight to 11am and we are very grateful to the brewery that it will partially remain open, but I can see the day coming when people will have to park outside the village and walk in.

“Residents already complain to me about excessive parking in their streets and now it will get a lot worse,” she said.

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The council’s chief engineer, Graham Jagger, said he was hopeful an agreement with the brewery could still be reached.

“We looked at charging for use of the car park as a way of raising the cash to pay for the new lease, but it didn’t go down very well with traders and residents.

“Now Whitbread has earmarked the site for use by its customers only and the way things stand it will close from Tuesday.

“We are very committed to providing a parking area in Whalley and are still hopeful that we can strike an eleventh hour deal with the brewery, but it may have to involve a pay and display scheme,” he said.

A spokesman for Whitbread said the needs of customers and staff at the Whalley Arms had to come first.

“We appreciate that the village has parking problems, but the purpose of the car park is to serve customers and staff of the Whalley Arms.

“Even the manager of the pub often struggles to park there. But discussions with Ribble Valley Council are continuing with a view to reaching a solution,” she said.

The LT reported in 2015 that the pub was to close its doors. The next year we revealed the grade-II listed building could become a general store.