PROPOSALS to relocate a 'problem' factory have been scrapped after the idea was shown to be too expensive.

Residents have spent years complaining that Ideal Upholstery, at the top of Railway Street, Nelson, was causing massive parking problems as well as letting out smoke, fumes and noise.

Councillors have considered solutions from putting an anti-social behaviour order on the factory to paying for it to be moved to another site.

But residents, councillors and factory bosses have agreed that they can only work together to improve the situation and it is now hoped that more parking spaces for the factory and a new heating system will help.

Residents had originally supported a proposal by Coun David Foster to pay for relocation, but he told them at a meeting on Monday night that it would mean a multi-million pound cost, as well as putting 45 jobs at risk.

He said: "Now we have got the residents, council and Ideal Upholstery all working together to resolve the situation and that's how it should be.

"We have a long way to go - it's not going to happen overnight - but we have got a good plan in place now."

The exact spot for the factory's extra spaces has not yet been decided, but it is hoped that spare land can be used to alleviate the pressure on the street.

Residents' complaints about the smoke are also hoped to be resolved with a new oil-fueled system to replace the present wood-burning heaters.

Coun Foster said: "We are still going to have problems - the factory is in the wrong place but it would cost millions to move it and that's not a cost either the council or the owner, Mohammad Aslam, can meet.

"The majority of residents are quite happy with what we have decided."

David Higginson, who lives next to the factory, said he agreed with the decision but feared a "green light" had been given to the industrialisation of the area.

He said: "I wanted the factory to be moved on but it looks like that is going to be impossible. I worry that they have taken a watershed decision and that they are rewarding Ideal Upholstery for its bad behaviour.

"It does seem like this is the only thing we can feasibly do, though, and people voted in favour of it."

Mr Aslam was unavailable for comment.