Hundreds of foreign lorry drivers are refusing to cough up when fined for parking illegally on the Wincheap Industrial Estate.

Almost 90% of those flouting an overnight waiting ban are ignoring the £70 tickets as the city council struggles to enforce penalty payments.

Between February 2018 and March this year, Canterbury City Council officers dished out 558 fines to foreign motorists who parked up illegally, as well as 21 UK-registered vehicles.

But despite the authority’s efforts to crack down on the nuisance parking, 490 of the punishments - totalling £34,300 - remain outstanding.

Fed-up business owners on the industrial estate previously told the Gazette how many of the drivers leave a mess behind, with many setting up kerbside barbecues.

About 30 lorries have been counted at the problem’s height, blocking business entrances and increasing traffic in surrounding roads.

Newly elected Wincheap ward councillor Derek Maslin says the figures are disappointing.

The Martyrs’ Field Road resident said: “What disappoints me is the fact nothing has happened for years. It’s been going on and on but just gets worse.

“It’s not an impossible job to track down the fined drivers. They hunt you down if you get fined in France, so why can’t we do that here?

“The lorry drivers leave a mess behind and it frustrates everyone.

“Homebase is unoccupied; maybe it could temporarily be used to hold half-a-dozen lorries?”

Signs worth £2,000 warning drivers not to park overnight were erected on the industrial estate in 2015.

Authority spokesman Rob Davies says the council is trying its best to retrieve every outstanding fine.

He said: “Our enforcement officers regularly patrol the industrial estate, and as the figures show, are very active in issuing penalty charge notices for contraventions of the overnight waiting ban.

“Clearly it is harder to collect the payments from foreign-registered vehicles than it is British ones, but we use a specialist enforcement agency to try and retrieve the outstanding amounts and will pursue these as much as we can.”

Council bosses hope the answer to the problem will be a new lorry park near Brenley Corner, although the proposal remains in its early stages.

Its launch will come hand-in-hand with powers allowing the authority to clamp nuisance vehicles on the spot.

Mr Davies continued: “Councillors recently agreed to work with Swale Council and other authorities to investigate options for a lorry park in Swale district.

“These investigations are continuing and a report will come back to councillors in due course.”

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