A HEREFORD man has questioned why enforcement officers issued one car with four penalty notices over four days before attempting to trace its owner.

Alan Launchbury, from Hampton Dene, photographed this car on St Owen Street four days after the initial yellow ticket was put in place.

He said fresh tickets were issued on four subsequent days of the week until they finally came to an end.

Mr Launchbury, who works on St Owen Street as an employability tutor, said: "The car had been there since the Monday and that's when the first ticket appeared but then more and more kept coming.

"I thought somebody might have gone on a coach holiday and parked there without realising the restrictions or had been in town and had an accident or gone to hospital. Nobody had bothered to check whether they were ok."

Motorists can currently park for free for up to 30 minutes on St Owen Street with no return for one hour.

Herefordshire Council said that the parking section did contact police in case the vehicle had been stolen or the driver taken ill after the vehicle had appeared not to have moved from the waiting bay for several days.

"The police investigated and subsequently notified us that the elderly driver had been taken ill and admitted to hospital," a spokesman said.

"Unfortunately he could not remember where he had left the keys and his family were unable to move the car. As soon as we were made aware of the circumstances we stopped issuing any further Penalty Charge Notices."

The spokesman added that the council does not know the identity of the driver and urged the family to contact the parking office.