PATIENTS and staff at a Bolton doctors surgery are incensed after they were banned from using a car park after 20 years.

The users of Tonge Moor Health Centre on Thicketford Road were suddenly confronted with a chain across the car park one morning.

Patients -- many frail and elderly or very ill -- have had nowhere to park and some have been given tickets after parking on yellow lines.

But trustees for Tonge Moor Labour Club on Ainsworth Lane, which owns the car park, say the health centre have refused to cough up to help pay for the car park.

They say it is only fair that the health centre makes a contribution to upgrading the parking facility.

But health centre receptionist Jackie Webb said: "It has caused much distress and untold inconvenience and suffering to the patients.

"We all know how it feels to be ill and how the slightest thing could cause us to feel worse, so having this inconvenience is appalling."

Mrs Webb said the situation was "unfair and hypocritical" because they had been told the new car park would be available for them to use free of charge.

The dispute arose after the new Tonge Moor Labour Club was built on the site of the old car park on Thicketford Road.

The original club was bulldozed and the land had been due to be turned into the new car park.

However the cost of building the Labour club was much higher than expected and the trustees had no money for the car park.

One of the trustees, Cllr Frank White, said: "The health centre has had parking for the past 20 years without having to pay a penny, not even for maintenance.

"There are 70 cars parked there during the day with the majority from the health centre.

"We prefer to be neighbourly as we have been for 20 years. It is they who are digging their heels in.

"I'm sorry that people have been inconvenienced. It could be resolved if people showed a bit of neighbourliness."

He added that the dispute had been on-going for 12 months after the new Labour club was finished.

But he said the health centre practice managers and Bolton social services -- which runs nearby Thicketford House old people's home -- refused to pay a third each for the car park.

The managers of Dr Hardman and Partners Surgery replied by saying they did not have the money to pay for the car park upgrading which would run into several thousand pounds.