A NEW supermarket is causing congestion chaos in Rawtenstall town centre - leading to calls for more traffic management improvements.

Motorists complained about queueing to get out of the town for over an hour on Monday, the opening day of the £24million Asda store off St Mary's Way.

Rawtenstall Chamber of Commerce chiefs today called for a traffic review to help ease congestion.

The Chamber's Clive Balchin, who works in nearby Bank Street, said: "It was chaos in Rawtenstall on Monday. A friend of mine took over an hour and a quarter to get out of the car park. It seemed that all of Rossendale was in Asda.

"I think the traffic lights will need tweaking and no doubt things will settle down." He said they will monitor the situation.

Traffic bosses at Lancashire County Council said action had already been taken previous to the store's opening and on the day to help alleviate problems.

A spokesman said: "We are aware of an increase in the number of shoppers coming into Rawtenstall. On the day it opened we were aware of problems and had a traffic engineer down there to assist traffic and re-programme the lights to help flow. We will be monitoring the situation and if further action needs to be taken in the future that will be considered."

An Asda spokesman said: "The incredible turnout did cause an issue over accessing and exiting the car parking at the store, especially with so many customers arriving and leaving at similar times.

"Asda have liaised with the highways authority and already the traffic lights at the exit to the car park have been re-phased, which should help to alleviate congestion at this key access point.

"We are also working with our own car parking division to find ways of minimizing the congestion at the exit to the store.

"We want to assure our customers and the residents of the town that we will do all we can to improve car parking and access and would like to apologise to anyone who experienced delays on Moday and we will continue to monitor the situation."