FAMILIES enjoying a trip to the cinema were left to foot a £140 bill after their cars were towed away.
Jayne Lloyd was among a number of people who left the Savoy cinema on Saturday and returned to Park Street to find their car was not where they had left it.
The mother-of-two noted when she parked there were "no loading" signs, due to development work there, but did not see anything warning that cars would be towed away.
She sent a picture to the Post which shows the wall where she parked and there are no signs on it.
However, when the Post went to the site yesterday morning, makeshift A4 signs which say 'No parking. You will be towed' had been taped to the wall.
Nottingham City Council says "no loading" notices have been at the site since February 23 advising people of a parking ban which has been in force since February 26.
Mrs Lloyd, 37, of Mapperley, who was with her two five-year-old twins, has now written to the council.
"The signs did not say no parking and there was no markings on the road to denote that we could not park there," she said.
"We were left stranded with two cold children along with a number of other families with children with no idea what to do – I have never even had a parking ticket before. The most upsetting thing was there was about seven families affected and the cars had just gone and we had no idea how to get them back."
The Savoy cinema said it was not aware of the parking ban, which also covers Newark Street.
Mrs Lloyd added: "I could have lived with a parking fine, although it would still have been wrong, but to take the cars away – it was a dead end street and they weren't causing a hazard."
A city council spokesman said the council aims to give people as much notice of parking restrictions as possible and that it had used signs set out by the Department for Transport.
"Our pictures from the weekend show that all cars that we removed from the area were parked near a sign that was clearly visible." he said.
"Signs notifying people of a temporary traffic order for Newark Street and Park Street went up on February 23."
