A woman fed up with lorry drivers getting away with parking outside her house put her car in the spot - and was issued with a parking fine. Sarah Pitt says lorries have been parked on the yellow line outside her home with no penalty.
She decided to put her own car there to stop them and got a ticket within 10 minutes.
Sarah has been calling on the council to upgrade the line from a single yellow - which people ignore - to a double yellow for more than a year.
It is illegal to park on the road between 9am and 7pm, but Sarah says people park there for hours and get away with it.
She told DerbyshireLive : "I feel not just claustrophobic, but it's become a miserable place to live, and it's a shame. If the drivers stopped for five or ten minutes, it'd be fine. But I don't know if it's going to be five minutes or five hours. I've just had enough. I've done everything I can do apart from move out. And no one would want to buy this house right now because of this."
Ms Pitt, 56, moved into the 1600s property five years ago. Before the pandemic, the parking issues were seldom a problem. But since, with an increase in home deliveries, they've gradually got worse, to the point where Ms Pitt says it can be a daily problem.
A huge lorry parked outside Sarah Pitt's house (Image: Sarah Pitt)
She cites various recent occasions in which huge HGVs have parked for long periods outside.
Ms Pitt works from home as a leadership and management trainer but one day had to pack her bags and left to go and work in town out of frustration.
Other times, she has confronted the lorry drivers herself, to advise them it is illegal to park there and to ask them politely to at least move to the other side of the street - which is still marked with a single yellow line.
These requests are met with mixed responses, she explains; sometimes they're gratefully heeded; other times she's told her to "go back inside and let people live their lives." She says that having to sort out the problem herself makes her feel "uncomfortable."
The yellow lines are painted down most of the street, so it bewilders Ms Pitt as to why her house is chosen as the parking spot for many road users when it is just as illegal further up, or on the other side of the road. One driver pointed out a visible sign on the other side and explained that he thought that meant that it was illegal there but not outside Sarah's.
This signage plate, which is on the other side of the road to Ms Pitt's house anyway, is that small that it is hardly noticeable (Image: Derby Telegraph)
Perhaps the oddest point of note about all this is that Ms Pitt has no idea what the lorries are there for. The area is largely residential, the street is thin and claims the drivers are "delivering" in the area seem easily disreputable due to the length of time they are parked.
A council engineer who performed an inspection on the street found that the single yellow parking restrictions were actually invalid due to the fact that the signs advising of the restrictions on Ms Pitt's side of the street were a total of 72m apart - more than the regulation 60m. Ms Pitt was advised via email that therefore she - and others - could in fact legally park there due to the yellow lines not being enforceable.
It was at this point that she parked her own car - which she usually parks elsewhere nearby due to the restrictions - in front of her home, thinking it could solve the issue temporarily by preventing anyone else from parking there. Ten minutes after she'd gone inside, she saw a parking warden issuing her a ticket from the seat in her living room.
Furious, she showed him evidence from her email conversation with the county council that she'd been told she could park there. The warden counted 35m between the signs and issued the notice nevertheless.
A spokesperson for Derbyshire County Council said: “We’re aware of the parking issues raised by Ms Pitt and our teams are working hard to resolve them. We’d encourage her to contact our Parking Enforcement Team with her concerns so we can identify the problem and cancel any Penalty Charge Notice, or help with any appeal, as required.
"She can do this through our call centre by ringing 01629 533190 and she’ll be put through to the team. Residents who would like us to investigate potentially putting in double yellow lines can email us at etc.trafficmanagement@derbyshire.gov.uk “
