A residents group says a housing expert is living in a "fantasy land" following his controversial comments on parking.

Clive Lucas, a specialist housing consultant for Dedmans, said people living in densely populated areas with a lack of space outside their houses coped by parking elsewhere or giving up their cars.

Alan Abbot - says Mr Lucas should go and have at look at the parking congestion in Westcliff Picture: MIKE MINERS

However, residents in the congested Westborough ward in Westcliff strongly disagree and are challenging him to visit their choc-a-block streets.

Alan Abbott, chairman of the Residents Association of Westborough (RAW) said: "People do not park outside the area where they live nor do they give up their cars to hire vehicles at weekends.

"This is fantasy land thinking and we can prove it by inviting Mr Lucas to walk around the streets of Westborough in the evening and see them clogged with parked cars."

Mr Lucas's claims came as he warned Southend's houses needed to be converted to flats to cope with the booming property market at a meeting of the town's Business and Tourism Partnership.

Mr Lucas was unavailable for comment.

Published Monday, June 2, 2003

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