I WRITE following the Citizen story on residents parking in the Dallas Road area of Lan-caster (October 12).

We always knew this was going to be a hard issue, where people have strong views on both sides, and the response has not disappointed us.

There were 98 yes and 81 no votes on the official council consultation document. How-ever, we are well aware that about 60 new people signed a petition to oppose the scheme and we are taking this very seriously Some people have reported us as saying that there was over-whelming support for the scheme'. We have never said that and could not have done so without seeing the results of the consultation anyway.

The council's consultation was just that a consultation. We have a meeting at the end of October with engineers where we will look at the votes and all of the comments made.

Our intention is to see if we can come up with some new measures from our meeting. For example, can we introduce new parking places opposite Chan-cellor's Wharf, can we protect residents in Ushers Meadow from people parking there or would it be a good idea to split the zone into two and so on.

If we can do this then we will consult with people again to see what they think of the new ideas and also whether we can find solutions to other problems they want to raise.

We also want to do another 5am survey to see what the actual level of resident car ownership is. The one done by the council was before most of the students came back and we want to see the numbers now.

We do not want to push these measures through regardless remember when the consultation was done four years ago we abandoned the idea because of opposition. However, we would very much like to find a solution to what is an increasingly difficult problem for many.

Cllr Jon Barry, Lancaster.