The potential loss of a 26-space free car park in Congleton would be a "disaster" and the town council has called on Cheshire East Council to come up with a "better solution".

The town council said it was not consulted about Cheshire East's intention to close the Rope Walk car park.

And it only found out when a resident of Providence Mill, which is run by Plus Dane Housing, emailed town councillors to say a public notice had been fastened to a lamp post.

A public notice was published on 11 June proposing 'to remove the land known as Rope Walk Car Park from the list of parking places within Congleton'.

Speaking at Thursday's virtual Congleton Town Council meeting of the community and environment committee, Cllr Amanda Martin stated that the town council thought that the notice meant that the car park would no longer be advertised on the Cheshire East's website, not that it was to be closed.

However, the real reason behind the car park potentially closing was that the new owner of the Lord Mountbatten pub had realised that half the car park was on his property and had asked Cheshire East Council to pay him rent. Only the section of car park behind 64 and 66 Mill Street belongs to the authority.

Cllr Martin said the pub owner confirmed that while Congleton Borough Council had paid rent when it operated the car park, no rent had been forthcoming since Cheshire East took over.

The reason given by Cheshire East was that the car park only had 26 places, was lightly used and 'would not represent a significant loss to the total capacity across Congleton'.

Cllr Robert Douglas said: "I have visited this car park on two occasions, and it is well-used. I am concerned that Cheshire East Council has taken this action without any consultation with Congleton Town Council.

"To me there is one simple not ideal step, they demark what area is actually owned by them and turn that smaller area into a car park for the residents which will only give up to nine car parking spaces, but it's a better solution then totally walking away."

Cllr Martin responded: "That's not ideal because more than 10 spaces are being used and it's also being used by the traders on Mill Street who have got no parking of their own."

Cllr Duncan Amies stated that he was contacted by Neil Dutton, scout leader for Dane Valley Scout Group, who was "very concerned" about the closure of the car park.

Cllr Amies added: "Rope Walk is a single track road, it's often parked down on the sides, so whenever the beavers, the cubs, scouts or eagle scouts go down, they're meeting four times a week, all the Air Training Corps (ATC) go down there.

"Getting down there and dropping your child off is a very difficult thing, the only place they can do that is by parking in the car park behind the Lord Mountbatten, so if that's removed it gives both of those charity organisations a big big problem."

Cllr Martin proposed that the town council contacted David Malcolm, head of planning for Cheshire East, expressing that there could be serious highways ramifications if the car park was closed due to there being a lack of alternative car parking within the vicinity for residents at Providence Mill, the scout hut users and the traders on Mill Street.

Due to the resulting highways issues, Cllr Martin stated that Cheshire East should be proposing a "better solution" then closing the car park.

Cllr David Brown said: "The army cadets and the ATC are both large organisations, this is going to be a disaster if this car park isn't kept open."

Cllr Amies added: "When Dane Valley Scouts are not operating on their nights, they are leasing out that facility to other groups. It's a very busy building and with the ATC as well, sometimes you have got the two organisations operating at the same time, so it's in use five or six days a week every week. I don't think Cheshire East are aware of this."

Councillors agreed to contact David Malcolm.