DISABLED residents could be made to pay £10 to prove they still require special parking bays outside their homes.

The 180 owners of disabled parking bays in the Hangleton and Knoll and South Portslade wards have been contacted as part of a city-wide project to reassess the need for disabled parking for residents.

Anyone who does not still have the paperwork proving they are the original applicant for the bay will have to pay £10.

Disgruntled residents “object to the principle, not the cost” of having to find the records for bays that have been in place for years.

Kathy Hemestretch, of Elm Drive in Hove, has had a disabled parking bay for her son Kieran for the past 19 years after he was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy, a rare genetic disorder, when he was ten.

She said the letter from the council was not posted to her but put on a street sign in the road.

She said if she does not pay to renew her bay it will be removed within a fortnight.

She said: “We are saving the country thousands by not putting our son into care and yet they are targeting us.”

The disabled bay outside Bill Nye’s home is vital for his wife Christine with Bill, who was paralysed down her right side following a brain haemorrhage in 1995.

He said: “The council put the disabled bay in, so how can they say now they don’t know about it?”

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokeswoman said the authority had contacted more than 180 original applicants by telephone and letter.

The council said there were nine disabled bays with no applicant data and, in some instances, residents have been using bays registered to a previous applicant.

She said: “The £10 is an administration charge and goes towards the maintenance of the bay such as re-lining or new signing.

“If residents can prove they are the original applicant of the bay, as many have already, we are happy to waiver the charge.”