CAR owner Penny Rossiter is livid today - after being clamped while in her own parking space.She left her vehicle in her designated place outside her home in Adastral Close, Felixstowe, and five minutes later found a clamp preventing her going anywhere unless she paid up £80.

CAR owner Penny Rossiter is livid today - after being clamped while in her own parking space.

She left her vehicle in her designated place outside her home in Adastral Close, Felixstowe, and five minutes later found a clamp preventing her going anywhere unless she paid up £80.

Clamping has been introduced on the 70-home estate near the port because of problems with people parking on verges, restricted streets and in each other's spaces.

Mother of three Ms Rossiter, 48, manager of the Barnardo's charity shop in Felixstowe, said she was staggered by the fine and would not be paying it.

“It is ridiculous and I could not believe it,” she said.

“I came home with my 14-year-old son at about 9.50pm and we parked in our space, correctly, like we always do.

“Five minutes later this car turns up and clamps me. I thought it was a joke.

“I have spoken to the clamping company and they say I have to pay £80 and refuse to accept I was in my own space and say that I was illegally parked. It is absurd - I am not the first person clamped for parking in their own space. Something needs to be done.”

She says she had her permit on the windscreen, but the clamping company takes video evidence.

She was not against the clamping if it solved problems on the estate because people now had more cars.

“It is very difficult sometimes when people have visitors. People with two cars park in the visitors spaces and friends and relatives have to park off the estate and it is not nice to walk all that way back to your car in the dark,” said Ms Rossiter.

“I can understand why they clamp and if I was parked somewhere I should not be I would accept that I was in the wrong - just as you would if you parked on a double yellow line in Felixstowe.

“But this I cannot accept, and £80 is far too much.”

Paul Kingston, director of housing and care services for Orwell Housing Association, which runs the Adastral Close development, said the estate's residents' association introduced the clamping and the association, as landlords, sorted out the contract.

“This tenant really needs to talk to the clamping company as it is not something we can get involved with. If the residents' association doesn't want clamping we could remove it but then it would go back to a parking free-for-all,” he said.

Are the clampers too ruthless - or are they keeping the parking problems under control? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk