The driver had left his car parked on an unrestricted part of the road while he went on holiday – but came back to multiple fines after a disabled bay was painted around his vehicle
A driver was left fuming after parking his car on an unrestricted road while he went on holiday – only for council workers to paint a disabled bay around his car and land him with numerous parking fines.
CCTV has been released which shows the moment a contractor arrived to paint a new disabled space around the already-parked car. The owner of the vehicle had parked it on a previously unrestricted road outside his home in Croyden.
The worker can be seen applying paint to the road before a second clip is shown of a traffic warden placing a ticket on the windscreen. The disabled space was painted around the car on November 17 and between November 22 and 26, the driver reportedly received four penalty notices.
Speaking to the BBC, the driver said watching the accumulation of fines on his car while he was on holiday was very stressful.
He said: “It really put a damper on my holiday because I kept checking [the camera] to see what was wrong and there was nothing I could do. I didn’t want to go out and do the things I wanted to do because I was worried about the amount of tickets I was accumulating.”
After seeing the CCTV video, the driver accused Croydon Council of causing “”stress” and “anxiety just because they can”, as well as “making up the rules”.
However, the London authority has stood by the act, claiming it was “standard practice” for a contractor to paint around the car, opposed to waiting for the spot to become vacant.
A council spokesman said: “Our road markings contractor painted lines for a new disabled bay on November 17 in response to a request from a resident.
“The contractor painted around a car, as is standard practice, otherwise they would have to wait for the space to be free, which may have taken weeks.
“The contractor took a picture of the car, so we knew not to give the owner a fine.
“Unfortunately, one of our parking attendants was not informed and issued parking tickets.
“However, these were not processed into fines because we had a note on the system from our contractor.
“The tickets were cancelled a week before the video was uploaded to social media, and we have apologised for the confusion.”
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