Cars and vans parked in her street – some without permits and without being moved on – have landed one Swindon woman a £70 fine.

Susana Almeida lives in William Street in the town centre, and has recently renewed her residents' parking ticket for the Clifton Street zone, which costs her £75 a year.

But she says the number of cars parked in her street means she finds it difficult to find a space and this led to her being ticketed.

Susana, 41, said: “We have a residents’ parking zone, with spaces down one side of the street, but it’s really difficult to find a space.

“I see quite a lot of people parking without a permits and there are always a lot of white vans, workers’ vans, which take up two spaces.

“It’s really hard to find a space after 5pm. And as a lone woman, that’s an issue for me, having to park a long way away from my house and walk in the dark. It means I don’t want to go out at night, I don’t want to visit my friends, because I’ll have to walk quite a long way from a parking space.”

That was the case in May when Susana couldn’t find a space late at night in her street at all, and had to try and find somewhere to park elsewhere in her parking zone F: “I went down to the next street down, Albion Street and there was a space – but my back wheels were half over the double yellow lines.”

Susana says she appealed against the fine, but was turned down: “I asked twice to speak to someone in person to explain – but the council just wrote back and said I didn’t have enough grounds to appeal, and I’ve had to pay the fine.”

Other residents in the area are also unhappy with the situation.

Lena Kamber, 45, had parked her car a few hundred yards away from her house. She said: “Parking around here is bloody awful. I think one of the things is all the rented rooms, all the shared houses. If everyone gets a permit – I don’t know how they all can fit in.

“And everyone wants to drive bigger and bigger cars. It drives me mad. Why does everyone need such big cars? They’ve got smaller and smaller houses, and bigger and bigger cars.”

Lena was annoyed by the way the Clifton Street residents’ parking area is divided into zones: “Just down the road is Curtis Street, but that’s not in zone F, so if I park there, even at 10pm, I get a ticket. I have to park in a different street, even if there’s a space there, late at night, a few doors away from my house. It really makes me angry.”

Another, James Seaton, 24, lives in a rented house in Curtis Street. He said: “I don’t drive, but it is always really crowded for spaces here, and if someone wants to visit me, and I get a day pass, it’s still really difficult to find a space. They sometimes have to park in a different street.

“I don’t really know what the answer is. I wouldn’t want to encourage more and more cars and more driving, but not having enough parking is also a real pain.”

When the Adver visited William Street, at 10am on a Wednesday morning, there were plenty of spaces available, with 28 cars and vans showing permits and one van displaying a day scratch-card. Two cars were parked in the street not displaying any sort of permit.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “Unfortunately, with more people owning cars the demand for permits has gone up. We have reviewed residents’ parking permit areas and additional space has been made available where possible.

“However, having a resident permit does not mean you can park on double yellow lines. There are a number of streets in the area that are included in the zone where residents can park. If there is a problem in particular streets where vehicles are parking without permits, residents can put in a parking enforcement request and our teams will patrol that area more frequently.”

In March 2018, a freedom of information request by the Adver revealed a total of 9,597 parking permits had been bought from the council.

But there were only around 8,410 parking spaces across the town for which they were valid, leaving one in 10 drivers with a permit stuck for somewhere to park.

Under new proposed parking standards put forward by the council new residential developments, such as conversions of offices into flats, or houses constructed on empty or derelict plots, in the town centre and Old Town will not have to provide car parking.

A survey on the plans can be accessed at swindon.gov.uk/parkingstandards