THEY say bad luck comes in threes and for the owners of these flooded cars the old adage seems to have come true.

The cars, which were parked up on the riverbank at Queen’s Staith, in York, fell victim not only to the rapidly rising river water over the weekend, but also a zealous parking inspector.

A taxi driver called The Press to say he had seen the cars being ticketed at about 9.15am yesterday morning after the floodwater from the Ouse had subsided.

Shaun Binns, landlord of The Lowther pub which is on the opposite bank of the river on Cumberland Street, said his staff had a good view of the incident.

Mr Binns said: “Normally you get people parking on there, but they move them in time to avoid flooding, but in this case I think the river’s come up quickly and they must have got caught out. There are double yellow lines down there and I suppose you could say that if you are not allowed to park there you shouldn’t, but the inspector must have seen the cars had been flooded and to be truthful, you’d think they’d have had a bit of compassion.”

A council spokeswoman said parking attendants had been unaware that some cars had been flooded when issuing the tickets. She said that if people provided evidence that their vehicle had been submerged, they would succeed in an appeal against their ticket.