The Unusual Story of a Crane, Parking Tickets and Furious Drivers

Have you heard the one about the crane, the double yellow lines and a band of furious drivers?

A bizarre story has emerged on a quiet road in Wokingham, which saw the council lay fresh double yellow lines.

Contractors, unable to do the lines with cars in the way, used a crane to lift vehicles, paint the lines and then put the cars back down before a parking enforcement officer turned up to deliver a raft of parking tickets.

Requests had been made by residents to put the lines in after commercial vehicles partially blocked the small lane.

One set of contractors, responsible for the line markings, failed to put out cones in advance and opted for a crane to lift cars to complete the job.

The only snag with that was no-one informed the parking enforcement officers, who turned up to find plenty of cars on double yellows!

Don Barwick, a resident, said; “I’m fine with the parking restrictions, it’s just that there was no real notice and certainly nothing to say that it was going to be done on this day, so people would have parked here without knowing.

“My wife was looking out of the window and noticed there was a big lorry with a sort of crane on it, and they were lifting the cars out of the way.”

The council apologised for the situation, blaming a coincidence in two different contractors working on line installation and parking enforcement.

A spokesperson said; “We will be taking this up with our contractor and reviewing our internal processes to ensure this does not happen again.

“We are very sorry that parking fines have been issued in this case.”

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