Painter hit with £5,000 fines as ‘snobby’ rules ban him from parking work van in driveway outside his home
Dad-of-one Dave Tooke has had 53 tickets in past two years despite forking out £11k for unbranded van to avoid charges
A PAINTER and decorator says he's being bullied for being a tradesman after being hit with £5,300 in fines for parking his van outside his house due to "snobby" developer rules.
Dad-of-one Dave Tooke, from Chichester, West Sussex, has had 53 tickets over the last two years which he can't afford to pay.
He moved into the £400,000, three-bed, four years ago and had no problems for the first two.
But he’s been told commercial vehicles are not allowed to be parked on the upmarket new build estate even though he has his own space.
The 40-year-old even bought a new £11,000 van without any branding on it but he keeps getting hit with parking tickets.
He even had to go for an ECG heart scan at hospital which he puts down to the stress of his ordeal.
Dave – who lives with wife Claire, 36, and their daughter Rheya, five – said: "When you've got a car parking bay you expect to be able to park and maintain a livelihood.
"It feels like I'm being bullied because I'm a tradesman and don't fit in with the people round here.
"They are making sure they don't get tradesman, we're the ones who build their houses but we can't live here and mingle with everyone else.
“We've tried to liaise and reason with them but they won't reason with us.
"Each morning I get up before work, go to my van and find a ticket I become overwhelmed with anxiety.
"These snobby estate developers are picking on me and discriminating me, what kind of place is this if you can't keep your vehicle on your spot?”
He added: "The first two years were fine, I had a sign-written van at the time and didn't get any tickets.
"After two years signs around the street about parking started going up and I got two tickets in a fortnight.
"I paid the initial two and spent £11,000 for my new van without any signs on only to continue getting tickets.
"That's the way it's been since, sometimes we get tickets once a month, sometimes twice a month, sometimes once a week and sometimes twice a week.
"Since Christmas just gone I'm getting at least once a week, are they trying to force me out? Without my van I can't pay to live here.
"I had to have an ECG because of stress.
"We came here to get out of the town and relax with our daughter and bring her up in a nice quiet place.
";They would rather have suited office workers with fancy jobs and fancy cars.
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Affinity Sutton, which runs the estate with Linden Homes, said a clause in a lease Dave signed stated commercial vehicles exceeding 762kg, like his Peugeot Expert, could not park there.
Linden said the bans were standard on new estates.
It comes after we told last month how engineer Oliver Smith, 27, faced a van ban when trying to buy in Colchester, Essex.