A MOTHER of three who claims there are insufficient parent and child parking spaces in Ipswich has today had a parking penalty revoked.Tracy Horlock received a fine for parking over the lines of a space at the NCP's Cox Lane car park but complained to the company because she felt she had no option.

A MOTHER of three who claims there are insufficient parent and child parking spaces in Ipswich has today had a parking penalty revoked.

Tracy Horlock received a fine for parking over the lines of a space at the NCP's Cox Lane car park but complained to the company because she felt she had no option.

She said: “I own a seven-seater MPV vehicle and the vehicle is too wide to park within one car parking space which this car park provides.

“There are no parent and child spaces within this car park which I feel every car park should provide if they wish to attract shoppers to the town.

“I have three young children, two of whom are in infant car seats and, when parking in these spaces, cannot open the vehicle doors to get either myself or my passengers out. I therefore feel that I had no choice but to park slightly over in order to get all persons out.”

Mrs Horlock, 35, of Didsbury Close, Ipswich was further angered because she claims a parking attendant watched her park.

She added: “At the time of parking a car park attendant saw me park the vehicle there and raised no objections.

“The penalty notice was attached to the windscreen only 11 minutes after the car was parked.

“Surely this car park attendant could have alerted me that I faced a penalty at the time of parking.”

But Tim Cowen, spokesman for NCP said he did not believe this to be the case.

He said: “It may well be that the customer mistook another uniformed person for an employee, but in fact our records show that this customer was not observed by an NCP employee while parking .

“The ticket was correctly issued because the vehicle in question was very inconsiderately parked, preventing any other NCP customer from parking in the neighbouring bay.

“It is absolutely incorrect to suggest that the bays in the Cox Lane car park are not big enough for people movers - and indeed, when we were investigating this query on Tuesday we saw three MPV-type vehicles and a Ford transit all parked correctly within the bays there.

“As a gesture of good faith we have cancelled the ticket.”