SO Trafford council is intending to increase their double ligatured' stranglehold on the centre of Sale, following the announcement of more double yellow lined parking restrictions. So many, that the notices wouldn't fit on two whole pages of this newspaper.

The news of this will be a pretty poor Christmas present for many businesses and shops. Each year the double yellow lines menace spreads like treacle and it seems the local authority won't be happy until both Altrincham and Sale centres have become islands, completely inaccessible to car owning shoppers, which includes most of the rate payers.

The Finance department must be rubbing their hands with glee as these new restrictions will, to use a Second World War analogy, bring another Happy Time' where unsuspecting motorists unfamiliar with the added new restrictions, will be torpedoed' with £60 fines.

How will the hard pressed wardens cope with all these additional virgin hunting grounds?' If necessary, Trafford will just employ more of em.

Of course if the council had any intention of keeping faith with local shop owners, they would have used the site including the car park adjacent to Altrincham Town Hall for short stay parking. This would give some shoppers somewhere to park nearer the shops. Few must fancy the walk in the rain from the main car park on the other side of the Metro track. But the lure of £1,000 plus community charges must have been too great and the site is now rapidly filling with more flats.

We've been told before in this column by a Council official; "All new yellow lines are a necessity, as a safety issue.."

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Of course the huge expansion of the Trafford Centre will make it almost unnecessary to shop locally. Is that the plan?

Bob Ford, Sale