A FURIOUS resident has hit out at a parking warden's "ridiculous" decision to issue tickets on cars parked around Harwich during an annual event.

Harwich councillor John Brown is calling on North Essex Parking Partnership to consider refunding the parking tickets put on cars during the Harwich Motorcycle Run on Sunday.

Mr Brown claims a parking warden issued about 20 tickets around Harwich Quay where visitors park for the town's biggest events every year.

So he emailed North Essex Parking Partnership to stress he could not see any parking restrictions during Sunday's event.

His email said: "As always there is limited parking at this event and over the years there have been no parking problems.

"Unfortunately at this year's event we seem to have had a big problem with one of your parking wardens was issuing parking tickets as though they were going out of fashion."

He said cars have always parked around the quay for the Motorcycle Run, Sea Festival, New Year's Fireworks and Shanty Festival.

He added: "I hope that parking services will let common sense prevail this time."

Mr Brown said cars parked on the road were not causing problems and there were no yellow lines - and cars on the grass verge were not causing any obstruction.

"Both areas are regularly used for annual events each year and there has never been any problems so I couldn’t see anything different this time, only that a lot of members of the public supporting a worthy cause were being asked to make an unacceptable payment to the parking service," he added.

A North Essex Parking Partnership spokesman said its intention was not to "dampen the spirit" of fundraising events, but it has the responsibility to make sure anyone attending these events can do so safely.

The spokesman said: "Sadly, on this occasion it appears there was not enough parking facilities provided for those attending.

"This resulted in people parking illegally in an area where there should be no stopping at any time.

"As a result this was blocking the vision of other traffic and pedestrians and where this occurred our civil enforcement officers issued penalty charge notices."

He said anyone who received a penalty charge notice is entitled to appeal it.