A woman claims she was fined for trying to stop lorries parking illegally outside her own house.
Sarah Pitt, who lives in a 400-year-old cottage in Belper, Derbyshire, said many HGV drivers park in front of her home on single yellow lines, despite it being against the law.
The 56-year-old said the rules are reportedly ignored by many, who park there for hours between 9am and 7pm without punishment, Derbyshire Live reports.
Sarah has been in dispute with Derbyshire County Council for over a year about the issue. She is desperate to get new signs installed or double yellow lines painted to stop lorries from parking there.
In a bid to prove her point, Ms Pitt parked her own car outside her house to prevent bigger vehicles from pulling up - but a traffic warden turned up 10 minutes later and slapped her with a ticket.
She said: "You couldn't write it. 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 10 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."
The woman moved into the quaint 1600s property almost five years ago, saying that the proximity of the house to the road due to the thin pavement did not bother her. Often, people stop to look at and take photos of the house due to its age and historic appeal.
Before the pandemic, parking issues were seldom a problem, she said - but since, with an increase in home deliveries, they have gradually got worse, to the point that Ms Pitt says it can be a daily problem.
She cites various recent occasions in which huge HGVs have parked for long periods outside, blocking out sunlight completely.
Ms Pitt works from home and said that the issue of lorries parking outside her cottage means she is often left in the dark.
She said that sometimes she gets frustrated and goes to work in town, while on other occasions she confronts the lorry drivers herself to advise them it is illegal to park there and ask them to move to the other side of the street.
She said that sometimes her requests are listened to, but occasionally she feels uncomfortable as not everyone is kind to her.
Ms Pitt said she is "increasingly frustrated" as she first contacted the council in May 2022 and after being "passed around every department", she was finally put in touch with a "traffic and safety engineer".
The engineer, in trying to help, performed his own inspection on the street and 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 had been told she could park there. The warden counted 35m between the signs in strides, waved off the dispute, and issued the notice nevertheless.
Now, responses from the traffic and safety engineer have died off and she's been advised by the council that she will have to appeal the fine legally through official processes. In the meantime, she is still waiting for a new sign to be erected on her side of the road to make the lines legally enforceable again.
The traffic and safety engineer said the sign would be requested when he first picked up her query months ago, but added that due to money and resource issues it "may take a long time".
Sarah fears this sign would just be ignored anyway, or that a traffic warden shortage - Ms Pitt says she's been told by the council that wardens are shared across regions - would mean that offenders escape unpunished anyway and that nothing would change.
She'd rather have a permit for herself or see double yellow lines painted, but has been told that double yellow lines would not make the offence of parking between 9am and 7pm any more illegal.
Due to the universal recognition of double yellows as a place where parking or waiting isn't permitted though, she feels it might help. She does add, however, that those who drive for a profession should be expected to know their road markings by heart.
Single and double yellow lines are painted by the local council or jurisdiction in any given area. Punishments for breaking the rules are dished out by the same councils.
Double yellow lines mark lengths of road where there is "no waiting at any time", says Derbyshire County Council's website. There are, however, exceptions, such as for "stopping quickly to load or unload heavy goods" - an example given by the AA. Small information "plates" fixed to lampposts will often tell you what these exceptions are. They vary from road to road and region to region.
Lesser seen single yellow lines indicate a shorter period of restriction such as daytime. Information plates will show the times that parking is and is not allowed.
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."
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