A THORNBURY mother-of-three is facing a parking fine for using a popular town centre car park twice in one day.

Helen Brum, 38, was handed an initial £25 fine after parking twice in the Castle Court short stay car park, off Thornbury High Street.

She used the car park for less than two hours on a Saturday morning while she was shopping with her family, parking there between 10.15am and midday.

She then decided to return to the convenient town centre car park later in the afternoon because she was meeting her sisters for coffee. She arrived at 3.20pm and left at 4.50pm.

However, on her return she found a parking ticket on her windscreen, which claimed she had been parked in the same parking space between 11.15am and 3.29pm on Saturday, April 16.

"I wasn’t in the car park the entire time and I cannot be the only person who returns to Thornbury twice in one day," she said.

Castle Court car park is restricted to two hours parking, and no return within one hour.

Mrs Brum wrote an initial letter of appeal to South Gloucestershire Council, which runs the car park, but has been told the authority is proceeding with the fine.

Mrs Brum has now been forced to collect evidence to prove she was not in the car park the entire time, including a letter from her bank to prove she bought petrol from the Thornbury Motors forecourt at 3.15pm, and a witness statement from family who visited her at home in the afternoon.

She said: "It’s me that has to go to all the bother of getting people to write letters to prove I wasn’t in the car park the whole time.

"They clearly aren’t monitoring the car park frequently enough and not exercising reasonable discretion when they do."

The full-time mum said she fears incidents like this will put people off visiting Thornbury.

"I think as a consequence this will put people off coming to Thornbury, and is one more reason why people will go to Cribbs Causeway," she said.

A spokesman for the council said the authority was considering Mrs Brum's appeal.

He said: "We use nationally recognised methods for recording details of parked cars both on street and in our car parks which has been tried and tested. Mrs Brum has made an appeal to Parking Services regarding the Parking Charge Notice (PCN) that was issued.

"She has claimed that she moved her car between the two observations that were made by the Civil Enforcement Officer. We have asked her to provide some evidence to support her claim.

"This is in accordance with the initial stages of the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) guidance for dealing with appeals against PCNs.

"All council owned car parks in South Gloucestershire are free to encourage visitors and help boost business in the district and are patrolled appropriately to ensure fair use of the facilities."