Hairdressers in Chorley are urging the council to give the new three hour parking limit the chop.
The owners of Dillon and Blake and Northcotes Hair Salon, both in Market Street, joined forces to oppose the fees. They warn the three hour limit introduced in April isn't practical and is costing traders dearly.
Bernadette Ainscough, proprietor at Northcotes, said: "We can't take any more. The four hour limit was bad enough but at least then we could send our juniors out to renew the parking ticket. Because of the new rules, our customers are having to leave the shop with wet hair to move their cars because they only have three hours and they can't renew the ticket.
"It takes at least three-and-a-half hours to do a colour, treatment, cut and blow dry and so the customers are having to leave before it is finished to spend 15 minutes roaming around for a new parking space. It is terrible. Five people on Friday had to move and another six on Saturday."
Denise Blake, owner of Dillon and Blake, said: "You go to the hairdressers to relax but our customers are panicking because they have got to get back to the car park - it puts a lot of pressure on them and us to get finished in time."
The council standardised all its parking charges from April 1, meaning that there would be a flat fee of £1 for a stay of up to three hours on all short stay car parks, including the Flat Iron, Fleet Street and Portland Street.
Chief executive Donna Hall said: "We introduced a maximum three-hour stay on the short stay car parks because we found people were parking on them all day and taking up valuable space."
- For more on this story, see this week's Chorley Guardian
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