SOCCER fans travelling to the new Bolton Wanderers Stadium at Horwich next season are to be deterred from parking vehicles in nearby streets.

Cars and buses will be encouraged to use the stadium's own car park and will be directed via the new roundabout outside the ground.

Traffic cones and "residents-only" parking boards are just some of the measures being considered, councillors at Horwich were told.

The council had invited police sub-divisional commander Supt Sandra Lee to attend the Finance and General Purposes Committee to discuss traffic management relating to the new football stadium.

Supt Lee said that nothing has been definitely decided but agreed that there was a need to protect local residents and it was being proposed to put "residents-only" boards at every road junction on Chorley New Road from Fall Birch Road to Aspinall Street.

A proposal to introduce double yellow lines is also due to be discussed by Bolton Council.

She said for the first couple of months it was planned to bring in traffic wardens to police Chorley New Road and to hit people hard with fixed penalty notices to get the message across.

Members were told that there was also a need to get prominent signs in place to direct stadium traffic to use the new roundabout, as the Tesco roundabout would not be able to cope with the volume of traffic.

"I am aware of the pressures and I do appreciate the problems," said Supt Lee. "The area will be very heavily policed for the first matches and I myself will be commanding the first match.

"Once the first few matches are over, people will have established where they are going to go."

Cllr Kevan Helsby agreed with the proposals. "It is important that we get off on the right note and if we discourage people from parking to begin with that should get us off to a good start," he said.

Cllr Barbara Ronson expressed concern over the number of car parking spaces at the site.

"The Secretary of State cut down the number of parking spaces and some of us are concerned that if the emergency car parking is not on stream there will be chaos," she said.

Cllr Helsby said that more pressure should be put on Greater Manchester Passenger Transport Executive to speed up the rail link. He proposed that the council write to the GMPTE, further to its letter of last November, supporting rail links to Horwich and expressing concern about the slow progress.

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