A woman was stunned to discover she had been given a parking ticket after council workers moved her car – onto double yellow lines.
Clair Morris returned to her beloved Mazda MX5 only to find it further down the street than she had left it.
The motor had also been given a penalty charge notice for being stopped on double yellows.
Next to the ticket, marketing agency worker Clair found another notice, saying her beloved red sports car had been ‘re-positioned by the council.’
Clair, 33, said: “I couldn’t believe it. At first I thought my car had been stolen, but then I noticed it was further down the road.
“When I walked up to it, I saw two notices under the windscreen wiper.
“The first was saying my car had been moved, which is fair enough, and the second was that I’d been given a £60 parking ticket, which wasn’t.”
Clair left her car parked legally on a street near her home in West Didsbury, Manchester, on Thursday morning.
According to the time on the repositioning notice, her car was moved just before 10am that very same morning.
When she returned to the car on Sunday, she discovered it had been moved onto a stretch of newly-painted double-yellow lines and slapped with a ticket – just hours before.
She said: “It’s just a bit crazy, really.
“I know traffic wardens have a job to do, but you would have thought they would have the common sense not to ticket someone who had clearly not parked in the wrong place themselves.
“Someone passing by told me they saw my car being put onto a tow-truck and thought it was being towed away.
“If I’d known they were painting lines there, of course I would never have dreamed of parking in their way.”
Clair complained to Manchester City Council, who have since apologised and cancelled the ticket.
A spokesperson for the council said: “The car should not have been moved to a location with double yellow lines, and this ticket should not have been issued and will be cancelled.
“Our contractors apologise for this error and we are now insisting that they follow our strict codes of conduct.”
