This weekend Sefton Park played host to one of Liverpool's cultural highlights, the Africa Oye festival - but for some the experience was marred by 'atrocious' parking around the famous south Liverpool green space.
With thousands lapping up the sun or braving the rain to enjoy African music and food during the hugely popular festival, there were numerous reports of selfish drivers leaving their vehicles in dangerous positions on the outskirts of the park - or in some cases just driving onto the park itself.
Problematic parking continues to be a major issue in Liverpool and the city council has vowed to clamp down on drivers by hiring more enforcement officers.
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Council cabinet member Harry Doyle was one of those to raise concerns about parking at the event. He took to twitter to share an image of a car parked fully across a pavement area next to the park. In the foreground of the shot was a young girl in a wheelchair who had no route past.
Cllr Doyle said: "Fabulous event, but if you’re a wheelchair user or have a pram, your experience doesn’t matter to inconsiderate car users parking around Sefton Park."
It was far from the only image shared of bad parking around the park this weekend.
Twitter user Paul shared pictures from a dash cam taken on Aigburth Drive during the festival. Countless vehicles can be seen lined up, parked on double yellow lines or in some cases fully on the pavement.
This was not the worst of it. Some drivers who couldn't find a spot on the roads surrounding the park opted to simply drive onto the grass and park there.
A twitter user shared multiple images of vehicles left in the middle of the grass. She said: "What is going on in Sefton Park? So many cars parked on all the fields. Think the park needs to stop hosting events if this is how it gets treated."
In response, the Friends of Sefton Park volunteers group said that council officers had handed tickets to the drivers of the cars involved. They added: "There’s plenty of free, safe parking spaces around the park and lots of public transport available. It’s the same as litter, people are just going to litter/park where they want."
In a recent announcement, Liverpool City Council said it is recruiting more enforcement officers and is already seeing better results in terms of fines handed out.
The local authority said that while 40,834 fines were issued between January 1 and May 31 in 2022, there were 51,956 handed out in the same period this year. They added that 4,000 fines were given out this May compared to May 2022.
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