CONCERNS have been raised about traffic problems ‘starting to spiral out of control’ around a community supermarket in Lostock.

The Very Green Grocery in Manchester Road opens Tuesday evenings, Wednesdays and Fridays and provides discounted food to around 150 customers per day while also tackling food waste.

Their premises - a former primary school - has limited onsite parking, but with few parking restrictions on the street directly outside, residents and businesses have encountered issues with the volume of vehicles competing for a small number of on-road parking spaces.

Now the Manchester Road Residents and Businesses Association have set up a public meeting in order to address the issues, and have requested Cheshire Police and local councillors attend.

The invitation states: “Road users now face long traffic snarl-ups and an ever-increased risk of danger to pedestrians and other motor users.

“It is also starting to have a detrimental effect on the residents and businesses along Manchester Road, with people experiencing access issues relating to bad and dangerous parking, and in some cases people having received verbal abuse too.

“The fantastic that the Cheshire Food Hub (the former name of The Very Green Grocery) provides to the area is not called into question. However, the consensus remains the traffic and parking problems caused by the hub are now starting to spiral out of control and a solution needs to be found to alleviate the situation."

The Very Green Grocery aims to provide around £30 of low-cost, high-quality food for £4 per week to people who are struggling with soaring cost-of-living expenses.

Rachel Waterman, head of business develop for the charity, said: "I’m sure the organisers of this meeting are doing what they think is best, but I wish they’d approached us first, and we could have explained all the mitigations we are putting in place.

“I am genuinely worried that this issue will put people off coming to see us, because it’s being presented as absolute chaos and gridlock, and that is not the case at all.

"Some of the problems stem from people having parked in a way that makes it difficult for people coming out of junctions or their driveways being able to see in both directions.

"I absolutely appreciate that people are raising this as a concern, and I’m really looking forward to working with the residents and businesses to find out what we can do about it.

"We want to make sure everyone who uses this part of Manchester Road is happy."