A 130-YEAR-OLD Totnes business could be forced to close within a year – another victim of the town's controversial residents' parking row.

The Harris & Son hardware store is so desperate that boss Simon Baker had taken out a page advert in a local paper warning: "Use it or lose it."

And he said that the recent residential parking scheme – which traders claim has left the town's car parks clogged with commuter cars driving out vital shoppers – is partly to blame.

The old-fashioned Harris & Son hardware store, which has a staff of four, is almost opposite Pete Ryeland's Indian Connection shop which, he revealed last week, he has put on the market after income dropped.

Mr Baker, who is chairman of Torquay United Football Club, warned in his advertisement that the Totnes hardware business is 'struggling as never before and basically it cannot go on much longer'.

And he declared: "Parking at the top of the town is difficult for anyone shopping and it has got worse and worse. People are just avoiding the town."

His advertisement warned: "If things don't improve the shop has one more year."

He explained: "We've seen sales drop since 2006 and rather than shut down which I'm very reluctant to do, I want to make people aware of the situation."

He said the residents parking scheme – which came into force six months ago and has made many of the residential streets around the town centre no-go zones for anyone without a residents' permit – had 'compounded the problem'.

The scheme has turned into a major row amid concerns over loss of shoppers and the displacement of commuter cars parking in residential streets further out of the town centre.

Worried town councillors are meeting with county and district council officers on Monday to try to find a solution.