CONFUSED motorists who have lost the plot about where they can and cannot park in Hadleigh are being invited to a public meeting to have it all explained.

CONFUSED motorists who have lost the plot about where they can and cannot park in Hadleigh are being invited to a public meeting to have it all explained.

Changes to parking rules in the town's High Street, including new waiting bays, a zebra crossing and fewer yellow lines, have left motorists in a spin about where to stop.

Now, a display will be held in the Town Hall tomorrow , from 9am-7pm, for the public to air any comments about parking in the town.

Suffolk County Council has made new 'limited waiting' bays, in white paint on the road, in a bid to make more parking spaces available throughout the day.

But a new zebra crossing has been added eliminated some existing spaces.

Some of the bays reserved for disabled drivers have been moved from one side of the road to the other and extra ones have been added.

One of the existing double yellow lines has been burnt off, creating a single yellow line restricted parking area outside the Doll Company shop.

While a waiting area has been added outside the Kings Head pub that had a single yellow line before.

A plan by the council to cut the number of signs cluttering the street, which is in a conservation area, is also not helping ease motorists' confusion with 'no waiting' signs at double yellow lines being removed.

The end result is that drivers appear to be puzzled the new markings and some are just ignoring them.

Shop workers think the new markings are confusing, especially as the labelling for an old disabled parking area has not been removed properly and is still legible.

One woman said: "It still looks like we have parking for the disabled outside the shop because the old markings have not been removed properly.

"We don't know if we are allowed to load or unload outside the shop anymore as the markings are so confusing."

"Double yellow lines have been added between two disabled parking bays so now only two cars with disabled badges can park where there was room for three or even four cars previously."

An assistant from another shop said: "Police are patrolling regularly and they have become very stringent on where cars are parking. I have seen them ushering people into the spaces.

"There is enough free parking at nearby car parks so I think these measures are to ease congestion.

"They seem to be getting ready for when the new Tesco store comes."

A spokesman for Suffolk County Council said: "We have released some of the prohibited areas into restricted areas so people can park there during the evening.

"Parking is now less restricted, as we have turned no waiting areas into limited waiting areas.

"We have added more restrictions in Duke Street as we were concerned about the traffic using it, including heavy goods vehicles. These were necessary to ease the congestion caused by traffic going down there."

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