We’re fuming over ‘ridiculous’ parking bays painted by the council – you can only fit a toddler’s bike in there
A GROUP of homeowners are furious over “ridiculous” new parking spaces, claiming they are only big enough for a toddler’s bike.
The bays in Borough Green, Kenthave come under fire after they were repainted last week.
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The lines only offer a space about half the width of a normal car, and locals call them a “waste of money.”
Christopher Scotty, who has lived next to one of the bays for seven years, recounted it Kent Online: “It’s pretty ridiculous.
“I don’t know how big a car is. It was a waste of time and money.”
“If they come back and do it again, they’ll probably do it wrong again anyway.”
His wife, Mary, added that residents were not warned about the repainting and simply woke up one day to find the bay practically split in half.
They were the same size before, but went largely unnoticed until the lines were touched up because they were so faded.
Mary was completely astonished that the unusual error had not been corrected during the renewal of the bays.
She said, “You can fit a toddler bike in there, that’s all.”
“The cars are still parked normally.”
Fellow resident Kitty Peploe claimed the problem was due to the council widening the pavement to improve pedestrian safety.
However, she says they failed to widen the parking spaces accordingly, which led to the crisis.
She fumed: “It wasn’t actually that important because the lines were pretty faded, but now they’ve come back and redone the original lines, which makes it look a bit ridiculous.”
“I can only assume that the person they hired was just told to go over the original lines and that’s exactly what they did.”
“Obviously they didn’t pay attention to the fact that the pipes needed to be upgraded.”
Kaine Sharp also described the mistake as “hilarious” but said he felt inconvenienced because he couldn’t park his van outside his house because of the risk of it being scratched.
Others went to the area Facebook page to comment on the spaces, with one joking that they might be for “noddy cars.”
Another quipped: “You have to park your car on the side so it fits within the lines.”
A spokesman for Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council thanked the report for bringing the issue to their attention.
They added: “We were on the road inspecting the repainting of the parking bay lines carried out by a contractor on our behalf and it is obvious that a mistake was made.”
“It appears that old white lines that were in place prior to a sidewalk widening were painted over in place of the newer, wider lines.”
The spokesman promised to fix the problem as quickly as possible and said the council would not issue parking fines until the work was completed.
This came after residents of a picturesque seaside town claimed it was being destroyed by “selfish” tourists clogging its streets.
Meanwhile, a Tesla owner was shocked to return from holiday to find an airport car park worker crashing his £40,000 electric car into a pond.
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