I HAVE lived in Clifton for more than 50 years. My side of the road is given over to family homes, the other side has one-bedroom flats.

Ever since I was a child, the flats were for elderly people. Two or three years back, the council allowed people of any age to move. Many of the new people belonged to the younger generation, which is great, but a problem came with their cars.

We now have cars parked nose to tail, causing massive tailbacks at busy times. People visiting the flats park across our driveways and obstruct our exits; buses are unable to flow; cars and lorries drive over the grass and churn the verges into mud. Residents had letters from the council saying we will be fined for the mess. So a year ago, I got up a petition to create parking provisions for the flats. The Press ran a story but little happened, until last week when the city council proposed an improvement scheme.

All the council wants to do is put yellow lines at one end of the street to clear the road for buses, which will force all the traffic to where we already have problems.

The council also proposes to remove a stretch of the grass verge and create a cutting for up to seven cars, where already eight to 10 cars park every night. The most obvious thing to do is create a roadway into the area behind the flats, and take away a grass area and create an off-road parking.

Tony Feetenby, Burdyke Avenue, Clifton, York.