ONE of Darlington's oldest family businesses has added its voice to calls for the town to have a new bus station.

The depot in Feethams was closed to the public in November 1997, leading to a massive influx of extra buses in the town centre. Shoppers and councillors alike have since called for a new station, possibly within the multi-million pound leisure complex due to be developed at Feethams.

Now Frederick Stehr, who runs Crombies restaurant and guest house on Tubwell Row, believes the huge number of buses in the area is bad for business.

Crombies opened in 1933. Mr Stehr said the guest house side of the business used to thrive because of ample on-street and Market Place parking.

But with the opening of the Cornmill Shopping Centre in the nineties, the parking in Tubwell Row had been eradicated. And the Market Place is no longer open to parking.

This combined decline in parking has led to him all but closing the long-standing guest house.

Mr Stehr said it was becoming increasingly difficult to park to unload goods for the restaurant because buses often spill over from their bays and stop outside his business.

Mr Stehr said: "The buses are taking over parts of the town centre, like Tubwell Row. I hardly can park my car to unload. It's cramped, it's over-packed with buses, it's jam-packed.

"I don't mind the odd bus up to a point, but it's overdone now. It's definitely above the limit of tolerance."

Adding to the guest house's problems, he said, was the noise from buses which start idling their engines outside at 6am.

A borough council spokesman said that, although the possibility of a new station could be among the ideas considered in an ongoing town centre access plan, it would need to be backed by the bus operators in the town.

The availability and cost of land near enough to the town centre would also have to be considered.