Southall Broadway traders met on Wednesday morning at Chaudhry’s TKC to demand that Ealing Council come up with workable parking solutions.

The traders are giving Ealing Council 14 days to respond constructively before taking further action.

Mr Chaudhry says "The pilot scheme at the Conservative club is ok but the main shopping area is here. We are the life and blood of the economy."

"Southall is the only place when you have parking restrictions up to 8pm."

Mr Gurmail Dokal said "There needs to be a balanced approach to the issue. We need the residents and the residents need us. If one suffers, it impacts the others."

"In the past Southall has been neglected. The current McDonald site would have been ideal car park. The Northcote Hotel would have been another ideal car park."

Both these opportunities have been lost because Ealing Council is totally unaware of what the other department is doing. The local traders were also extremely unhappy at the outrageous clamping practices at the McDonalds car park.

Mr Dokal said "We need to find a creative solution like dual parking bays for certain times (i.e. when residents have driven to work elsewhere)."

"Southall residents pay £45 for an annual permit and are able to get cheap parking for visitors. Businesses have to pay £250 per vehicle."

"18 months ago businesses could issue customers with 1 hour parking tickets but that was withdrawn due to unsubstantiated complaints even though the council was closely monitoring the impact."

"Give business room to breath. If we go, we will be replaced by 1 man band businesses creating local unemployment."

Mr Chaudhry is planning to house the Pakistani 2012 Olympic team in West London with training facilities at Brunel.

"What facilities can we provide for non-athletes (i.e. guests, relatives or visitors) to the area? We don’t want to aggravate the parking problems."

Mr Dokal said "10 shops on the high street parade were sold for over 12 million by Ealing council. Yet they are only re-investing less that 1.9 million in Southall."

"Quite a few shops have already gone out of business. Lots of shops have changed faces because no one is surviving long enough."

"If I had to pay rent on one of my outlets I would have been bust" was the general consensus.

Mr Dokal said "Southall has unique family run businesses all located within Southall. People used to come for shopping from as far as Europe but not any more."

"Other councils are helping businesses but not Ealing council. We need Ealing council to support us during this time."

The head of the Ealing parking services keeps changing every year and we have to start fresh each year. Nothing gets achieved.

Mr Dokal said "We have been raising these issues over a long time."

If after 14 days there is no action then we will have to take further steps.

Mr Mohammad Amjad from Amjad Karahi said parking problems have been affecting his business for years.

Mr Dokal said "We can promote Southall but where will the visitors park? There is physically no where to park.