Man’s fury after council paints disabled bay around car and fines him

A man has hit out at a council after a disabled bay was painted around his legally parked car leaving him with four fines.

The Audi-owner took to social media to share footage of Croydon Council workers painting disabled bay markings around his parked car while he was on holiday.

After returning from his trip, Afrobeats artist Silvastone found four penalty charge notices (PCN) on his car parked on a road near his home in New Addington, south London.

Footage shows parking attendants giving him the tickets between November 22 and 26 after they came across the car in the newly painted disabled bay.  

Croydon Council, which has gone bankrupt three times in the past five years, said that the fines were ‘cancelled a week before the video was uploaded to social media’.

The local authority has ‘apologised’ to the man but insisted it is ‘standard practice’ to paint around vehicles to prevent delays.

The London-based artist said he left for his holiday, ‘thinking I’m safe, I can travel, my car’s good’.

‘So guys, imagine: I park my car and it’s not in any sort of disabled bay or restricted parking as you can see. There’s no yellow line,’ he said.

He continued: ‘Lo and behold some madness is about to happen.

‘On my little camera I’ve got, they are making a disabled bay around my car. Mad.

‘And then now you have a traffic warden. She’s decided to give me a ticket.

‘I’m thinking “what kind of madness is this?” because I never put my car inside the disabled bay.

‘So Croydon Council, I don’t know what you guys are on. Anyway, the next day the lady is back.’

He went on to say that ‘this is not on’ and ‘this is not fair’, with PCNs carrying a £160 charge each, reduced by 50 per cent if paid early.

The disabled bay was reportedly installed in response to a request from a fellow resident, with the contractors taking a picture of the car so it would not receive a fine.

However, the council said that ‘unfortunately one of our parking attendants was not informed’ and the parking tickets were issued.

The Audi-owner added: ‘Clearly there’s no communication, you guys [Croydon Council] are just running it however you want in order to make profit.

‘It kind of feels like they’re bullying, “cause how can you do this?”‘.

A spokesman for Croydon Council 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.

‘It is unacceptable that our parking attendant has received verbal abuse online.

‘We ask that any residents with concerns should contact the council directly and not abuse any member of staff carrying out their duties.’