CHAPEL Street residents in Wincham are calling for action to tackle an “eyesore” former house site and traffic congestion in their street.

The calls come from Clara Dockney and Lillian Barton, who wrote to Wincham Parish Council to express their concerns.

Mrs Dockney was concerned about the appearance of land where a house was pulled down but the rubble remains, in view of calls from parish council chairman Annie Makepeace for people to “keep an eye” on the areas around their own homes.

“We have some newcomers in Chapel Street, who have worked on their houses, which look beautiful and well cared for,” she said.

“However we have this eyesore where the house was pulled down, and the rubble left and that awful black fence erected to hide it.

“It is time something was done about it, it can’t be very nice for the houses either side of it, and the family across the road must get depressed every time they look through their window at that fence.

“It would be better if it was cleaned up and left as an open space. Somebody must own it, and should be made to clean all the rubble out.”

Mrs Dockney wrote to the council after being approached by a number of residents about the site.

Fellow Chapel Street resident Lillian Barton wrote to the council to draw its attention to “grave” traffic problems.

“This is a C registered street with narrow pavements, and we have two residents with mobile scooters who find it impossible to use them due to vehicles parked on the pavement,” she said.

“Vehicles are double parked, and traffic coming from Church Street now travel in bunches due to the traffic lights now installed.

“This causes jams at both ends of the street, which is also making it dangerous and difficult for residents to leave their drives.”

Mrs Dockney told councillors the volume of traffic using Chapel Street was “ridiculous,” and she would like to see the road become a no-through road.

Cllr Dominic Turner said the former house site was fenced off properly, and council chairman Cllr Annie Makepeace said the site was outside of the parish council’s control, while stressing that it was unacceptable to leave the rubble after pulling the house down.

The congestion and parking problems were due to a combination of factors, she told the Guardian, including the lack of garages and off-street parking, the narrowness of the road, drivers ignoring weight limit signs and using the road as a short cut to Northwich.

“We really need to make Chapel Street access only, and I would like the highways department at Cheshire West to consider how to deal with these traffic problems, which are going to get worse with all the new building which is due,” she said.