HELSTON residents have been warned not to take the law into their own hands as tempers have flared over parking in residential areas of the town.

Town mayor Mike Thomas has reminded people not to try policing the parking on their streets after visitors to the Meneage Street Surgery reported feeling intimidated by residents when trying to leave their cars to attend appointments.

During a meeting of the town council last week, town clerk Chris Dawson aired concerns raised by people using the surgery, who had been accosted when they tried to leave their cars in Prospect Place.

He told town and Cornwall councillors that patients who lived away from the surgery had “nowhere to park” with the only spaces available on the nearby street, but local residents were putting cones out and “getting quite physical and aggressive” when somebody parked “for even a few minutes.”

He said the town warden had been made aware of the issue, and had spoken to a highways manager at Cornwall Council, who had said “she won’t touch it because she was nearly physically assaulted last time.”

The clerk asked local councillors Judith Haycock and Andy Wallis if there was anything they could do to remedy the situation, and councillor Haycock spoke for both when she said if it was getting to the point where there were fears over physical violence, the issue would be a police matter.

The mayor, councillor Mike Thomas, said: “Residents don’t have the right to put cones on the road, only think what happened when one resident chose to paint yellow lines recently.”

He added: “As much as we feel stressed by parking issues, it’s not alright to take the matter into our own hands.

“People become quite stressed and upset.”

Linda Granger, managing partner and practice manager at the Meneage Street Surgery, said although parking around the surgery was an “absolutely huge issue”, she had not heard any reports of patients being threatened because of where they parked.

She said she had been trying for 11 years to find more parking spaces for the surgery, including offering to buy or lease land from the Anchor Trust, which runs The Clies sheltered accommodation next to the surgery, to create spaces for around 20 cars, which would help alleviate the parking problem for visitors.

A spokesperson for Cornwall Council’s highways department said: “Road cones have no legal standing and motorists are within their rights to remove the bollard and park where there are no highway restrictions in place or their vehicle is not causing an obstruction.”