DOUBLE yellow lines might have been - controversially - painted in York's Fossgate, but this photograph reveals how many motorists are still parking there regardless.

Cars are pictured lining the narrow street in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

An inspection revealed that many had no blue badge to indicate they were being driven by a disabled person.

But City of York Council says many of the drivers - be they disabled or not - were taking a chance by leaving their vehicles there, or indeed in several other city centre streets.

"They were very lucky," said Peter Evely, head of network management, saying that every car without a blue badge would automatically have received a £30 penalty fine if it had been spotted by a parking attendant.

Even people with badges would have been at risk of getting a ticket if their vehicles had been considered to be causing an obstruction.

He said the badge only allowed people to park for up to three hours if they were not obstructing passing vehicles.

He said it was sometimes a "judgement call" as to whether an obstruction was being caused or not, but disabled drivers needed to exercise their own judgement before parking up.

Parking was banned in Fossgate and some other city centre streets because of access difficulties for emergency service vehicles.

He said that at the top end of Fossgate, the road was so narrow that parked cars would cause an obstruction, while this was not the case at the other end where the road was quite wide.

Updated: 14:38 Wednesday, July 14, 2004