IT’S no surprise that police were able to give out 20 warnings in just one hour to motorists in the centre of Blackburn’s Mill Hill area last week.

Their offence was illegal parking on double yellow lines and even the zig zag markings close to a zebra crossing which leads to a children’s play area in Chapel Street.

One shopkeeper was quoted as having seen more than 40 cars illegally parked in one morning alone.

There can be no defence for drivers just pulling up anywhere and leaving their cars in obviously dangerous spots even if it’s done so they can pop into shops, post offices or community buildings perhaps for a just few minutes.

But this isn’t just a Mill Hill problem.

It’s one that can be seen in many urban areas right across East Lancashire where there are secondary shopping centres surrounded by streets of 19th century terrace houses.

There just isn’t enough room for the number of cars we have.

Mill Hill is a typical example with lots of narrow streets lined on both sides with parked vehicles and sometimes just a single lane down the centre.

Although the Spar supermarket has its own car park the only one for other shoppers is small and a stranger to the area could count him or herself extremely lucky if they a) found it and b) could actually get onto it.

This situation is mirrored all over East Lancashire and is one of the major reasons why supermarkets with their enormous car parks are draining the lifeblood out of our local shopping streets.

Yet across mainland Europe and as far afield as countries like Australia clearly-signed, ample car parks are part of every neighbourhood shopping centre.

The solution is so simple and yet for years and years our local authority planners have done little or nothing to ensure that people who need to take their car down to the local shops, post office, bank, health centre, library or nursery can actually do it without the hassle of driving round and round crowded streets looking for a spot or stupidly parking somewhere dangerous.

It’s not as if there aren’t plenty of potential sites on disused sites dotted around such places.

But what’s lacking is a pro-active approach by council officers to try to protect small groups of local shops for the future.

Unless they wake up fast we will find ourselves living in towns where every time you want anything you have to drive to spend your money with one of the top four or five retailers whose stores, like budget hotel bedrooms, are identical wherever you are in the United Kingdom. Is that what we really want?