A ROW has broken out after 10 parents were issued with parking fines during a school open evening.

Parents found themselves slapped with a £70 fine as they left the meeting for prospective Year 7 pupils at St Gabriel’s High School in Bridge Road on Monday night.

One angered parent claims the vehicles were parked on a grass verge and there were no signs against parking there.

However, Bury Council says that all 10 of the vehicles issued with Parking Charge Notices (PCNs) were parked on an area with double yellow line restriction.

Parent Nicola Phillips attended the open evening with her son which began at 6.30pm. When Ms Phillips left at around 7.15pm, she found she had been given a fine at 6.58pm after parking on a grass verge.

The mum estimated that there were 200 to 300 people at the event, leaving no room in the school’s three car parks.

Ms Phillips said: “We had the very first parents’ evening for the new intake for September. We all arrived at 6.30pm. The car park was full, everyone was on the main road going into the school. There are grass verges all the way down, so people didn’t park on the double yellow lines, we parked on the grass verges.”

Ms Phillips said there were no signs telling drivers not to park on grass verges.

NSL parking enforcement officers, a subcontractor of Bury Council, issued 10 Parking Charge Notices (PCNs), of which two have already been paid.

A council spokesman said: “Double Yellow Line (DYL) restrictions are in place 24/7. Some had parked on the DYLs, while some had parked beyond the DYLs and on the grass verge, maybe thinking this was acceptable. However, the adopted highway and therefore the restriction, extends to the boundary line, which in this instance would be the school fence.”

The school told the Bury Times they were unable to comment because parking fines "do not fall under their jurisdiction."

Ms Phillips said the tickets have created “bad feeling” during their first trip to St Gabriel’s.

She said: “People have never been to the school before and do not know what parking is like. There was nowhere else to park, there was always going to be more people than can fit in the car park. It is disheartening for new parents.”

Ms Phillips’ husband Steve agreed, saying: “It’s out of order, it’s a lot of money. People have gone to the trouble of putting cars on the grass verges instead of in the road.”

Bury Council were not informed of the event in advance.

The council spokesman added: “If we had been informed, we could have asked the school to flag up the traffic restrictions in any literature they sent out."