FIVE years on town centre residents are being consulted again over their views on residential parking zones.

In 2000, families in the Railway Road area voted against the plan, but since then the council has continued to receive complaints for and against the idea.

The new proposals involve introducing residents' permits, which are not free by the way, in three different zones.

The first extends from Atherleigh Way to Market Place and Railway Road to Windermere Road, the second from Market Place to Platt Fold Street and Lord Street to Sefton Street and the third from Atherleigh Way to King Street and Railway Road to the Canal behind Twist Lane.

That's a vast area in which no-one but permit holders will be able to park.

An impossible plan to put into practise I would say - unless part of the Railway Road college campus is demolished and turned into a multi-storey car park to accommodate the hundreds of students and staff who use the side streets and all the shops and businesses in the area are re-located.

It's bad enough for visitors and employees who live out of town trying to park near their place of work each morning without making life more difficult.

I can well appreciate the problems residents have with parking outside their homes in the terraced streets, but what happens in the case of families who have more than one car, and there are plenty? Or those who have visitors with cars. Where are they going to park at Westleigh and walk in?

Parking is a major problem everywhere, but surely some contingency plan will have to be put into operation before the schemes, if they are called for, are given the go-ahead.

It looks to me like a scheme that could turn Leigh into a ghost town. What do you think?