Yellow lines scheme will kill my pub, says Telford landlady

Mother-of-two Vicki Tranter said the historic Bull's Head, in Milners Lane, Dawley Bank, could never survive if yellow lines were placed outside.

She said she had to stop them being put down on Wednesday, and it was only with a call to council leader Shaun Davies that the work was postponed.

She said: "The pub trade is hard enough as it is without another hurdle.

"I've been landlady here for nine years. We're the last pub left in Dawley Bank. We have limited parking spaces – there's only one, and that's where I park.

"Behind us is a set of cottages and across the road is some resident parking, but my customers don't park there out of respect.

"They park in front of the pub and park down the lane. Sometimes, and it's not always my customers but I'll take the blame, they park too far from the edge and buses can't get past.

"But with yellow lines you're just moving the problem."

Although the plans for yellow lines have been in the air for quite some time, Ms Tranter said she was unaware that they were about to be put down.

The 38-year-old said: "I saw the van pull up to paint the lines. I had to go out and said that there'd been no warning. There hadn't been any letters or a sign on a lamppost.

"I rang Shaun Davies to complain and he's put a hold on it for now, with a view to having a meeting to discuss it."

The Bull's Head, Ms Tranter said, is a drinker's pub, and she relies on football, darts and pool players on the quieter nights of the week.

If her customers – many of them elderly – were unable to park she is worried they will move on and it will mean the more than 180-year-old pub will have to shut.

She said: "If the lines are put down, it'd leave me with no parking whatsoever. It would kill my pub. People just wouldn't come back. Where they're putting them is very unreasonable. They could compromise, but they just wanted them everywhere.

"I sympathise with local residents, but my pub is hundreds of years old. They chose to live next to a pub.

"I want to work out a solution where everybody can be happy."

Russell Griffin, a spokesman for Telford & Wrekin Council said: "There has been a long-standing issue in respect of parking at this location in Dawley Bank.

"Telford & Wrekin Council is committed to working with all partners and local residents to seek a solution to this situation going forward."