Wetherspoons punters are parking outside our homes and blocking us in – we’ve had to take drastic action

RESIDENTS living near a Wetherspoons pub have taken drastic action after drinkers started parking outside their homes and blocking them in.

The situation worsened when staff at The Whiffler pub in Norwich, Norfolk, converted a car park with 20 spaces into a seating area with 40 tables.

It has become so tense that local businesses have even made fake parking tickets in an effort to scare drivers off.

Parking chaoserupted after Covid restrictions meant pubs had to create an outdoor space for drinkers in order for them to obey the social distancing rules.

Bosses decided to make the change permanent when it became a big hit with regulars.

Locals though have complained as visitors to the pub now park in the surrounding streets, blocking in the residents.

The pub still offers car parking for around 30 vehicles to the side and rear but these are quickly taken due to the boozer’s popularity.

Local Stephen Moore, 38, said: “It is absolute chaos around here thanks to the Wetherspoon.

“People have blocked me in loads of times so I can’t get my car out. Even if they park on the other side of the road, it might mean there is not enough space for me to reverse out and turn.

“It is incredibly annoying. If I do go out, I can return and not be able to get back in my own driveway and there are cars parked all the way up the road.

“There was once space for around 20 cars at the front of the pub and now there is room for just a couple because of the tables. It is a pain in the backside. They should put it back to how it was.”

Lacey Douglass, a local councillor, sold her family home where she grew up opposite the pub because she was so fed up of being blocked in.

Mrs Douglass, a Conservative on Broadland Council, said: “It was so intolerable that I had to leave a couple of years ago.

“After the first lockdown eased, we could not cope with it any more. It was a shame as I had lived in the house since I was six. The pub was totally to blame.

“But I don’t have a personal vendetta. It is a community problem that needs to be solved. I have got residents sending me pictures of bad parking nearly every day.”

She and fellow councillor Simon Jones have now organised a residents’ meeting in a community centre to try to come up with a plan to tackle the problem.

Wetherspoons bosses have invited residents to a meeting at the pub on Tuesday to try to placate them.

Recently, the pub has put up three signs on a barrier on its boundary urging customers “to be considerate towards pedestrians, neighbours and local businesses when parking in or around this area”.

They ask customers to use the car parks provide and to avoid blocking pavements and access to properties or to park in such a way as to endanger visibility.

A disabled local, who only gave her name as Ruth, said it was a “nightmare” living there now.

She said: “I often get blocked in. People never leave a note or a number to ring, and you have to wait for them. I used to ring the pub to complain, but it never did any good.”

Another resident, who did not want to be named, revealed she had taken to downloading and printing fake parking tickets from the internet and putting them on windscreens of badly-parked cars.

She said: “They are not real parking tickets, but I fill them out with the registration number of the vehicle. It is worth it if it makes people think for a minute that they are getting a fine, and then they might think twice about parking the same way again.

“But you get the same vehicles coming back again and again. There are two scaffolding lorries parked on the road nearly every Friday.”

“I don’t want to make too much of a fuss because the people who run the pub are lovely.”

The manager of the Subway opposite the pub also said he had recently erected professional-looking signs threatening people who were not his customers with a £100 fine if they parked in his spaces outside his takeaway.

He said: “It was getting so bad that we had to do something. People were leaving cars in my spaces for two or three hours while they went to the pub or sometimes even overnight.

“There were times when all my spaces were full and my customers could not stop because they had nowhere to park. The signs have improved things a bit, but it is still a problem.

“I have not tried to fine anyone yet, but it is getting to the stage where I may get an enforcement company to do it.”

A spokesperson for Wetherspoon said: “We are aware of local concerns regarding parking near the pub.

“A neighbourhood meeting has been arranged for, August 22, between representatives from the company, local ward councillors, the licensing officer and local residents to discuss the issue, including to what extent it is caused by customers using the pub and whether the addition of double yellow lines on the roads in question could help.”