PARKING chaos has blighted the lives of residents on a central Swindon street.

Concerned resident Helen Markham has claimed that there is nowhere near enough space for everyone to park their cars in Bowood Road and some vehicles are forced to reverse all the way down the hill on to the busy main road that runs along the bottom.

She says she has been driven to despair after new tenants have moved in with several cars per property, making the road dangerously crowded.

The street joins Kingshill Road, which has double yellow lines all the way along it.

Although there are no yellow lines in Bowood Road, and it has an area at the top of the hill for vehicles to turn, the road has now become crammed with cars which make turning there impossible.

Helen said: “Everyone’s suffering, it’s an absolute nightmare.

“I was told the parking was bad before I got here but it’s been exacerbated since I moved in, it’s a free-for-all.

“My neighbours have all tried to speak to the council to get them to do something about it and they’ve all failed.”

Helen is worried that the parking conditions are causing friction in the local community.

She said: “I accidentally parked a quarter of an inch over a neighbour’s drive and they put packing tape over my car windows, which is dangerous and surely counts as criminal damage.

“A lot of cars have been damaged and scraped and the bin men have been complaining because they now have to reverse back down this steep, narrow road to turn around.

“One of my neighbours is moving out because of the parking, they weren’t told that it was this bad when they moved here.”

Frustrated by the lack of response from the council, Helen has tried to come up with her own solutions to the issue.

She said: “I’ve had to drive my van on to a grassy area to park it because there’s no space and everywhere else nearby has double yellow lines.

“I’ve suggested that we could start a petition for the council to pave over part of the grass, which would easily create six or seven spaces and most of my neighbours would be in favour of that.”

A controversial proposal for double yellow lines to be added to part of the road was met with anger from Bowood Road and Kingshill Road residents earlier this year.

They argued that it would limit the small amount of parking space available even further.

The proposal has not yet been formally approved.

A spokesman for Swindon Borough Council said: “We have been working with local residents and ward councillors for many months to come up with a solution to the parking issues in Bowood Road, but have been unable to find a scheme which satisfies the whole community.

“We are therefore considering all the feedback we have received to see if an alternative solution can be found.

“We are aiming to complete this as soon as we can.”