A DARWEN man who has parked outside his own home for 12 years arrived home to find painted white lines preventing him from parking there.

Ian Hamilton, of Spring Vale, Garden Village, said he had parked outside his home in the cul-de-sac ever since he moved to the house 12 years ago without any problems. But last week he returned home to discover a white line painted all around the cul-de-sac.

And, as no notification notices had been sent out, he continued to park there, which resulted in a fixed penalty notice being slapped on his van.

Ian said: "This white line had just appeared overnight. I went out and when I came back the next day, there it was.

"There was no notice, no consultation, it just appeared. I wasn't really sure what it meant, and it can't be that I'm obstructing traffic with my van, because we live in a cul-de-sac, so it didn't make sense.

"I carried on parking there and now I've got this notice. I don't really know what I'm supposed to do in the future, and I can't believe the council can just do this without asking anyone."

He said that although he had a shared drive with a neighbour on one side, he was not aware that his van obstructed the drive in any way.

Council regeneration chief Graham Burgess said: "All the homes in this particular cul-de-sac have driveways for cars as an area for residents to park, but there have been a number of complaints to the council over quite a period of time about problems with parked vehicles obstructing pavements and blocking access to some driveways.

"The council wrote to all residents a number of months ago following a series of complaints from some of the residents. As a solution, we have put H-bar markings across some of the driveways to deter parking in these areas to allow residents access to their drives.

"These do not have any legal force, but offer guidance to drivers to avoid parking in this area to prevent any obstruction.

"Parking fines are issued by the police when they consider a driver may be causing an obstruction to either a pavement or driveway following a complaint.

"The police can fine anyone they consider to be causing an obstruction regardless of whether or not H-bar markings are in place."