NEW parking places have been painted along a short stretch of road in a bid to end the confusion which has seen more than 1,000 motorists hit with parking tickets in less than two years.

Since the start of 2014, parking wardens have issued tickets totalling more than £27,000 to 1,143 motorists on the A23 between Patcham Place and the A27 roundabout in Brighton.

Now new road markings have been painted after the ticketing bonanza was flagged up by a resident who complained the road had become a “cash cow” for Brighton and Hove City Council.

Before last year not one ticket had been issued in the road, which previously had urban clearway road signs but no road markings.

But then wardens began handing out notices at a rate of almost two a day.

On one Saturday in July 2014 alone, wardens issued 19 tickets.

By comparison just five tickets were issued to motorists in nearby Church Hill and 80 in Old London Road in 2015 and 2014 .

Irene Dobson, from Highview Avenue North, raised the issue with her ward councillor Lee Wares and the city council after receiving three tickets.

In a bid to clear up the confusion, she wrote a note on a lamppost at the ticketing hotspot to warn other drivers.

The council has since offered to refund two of the tickets.

She said: “I’m glad they have cleared it up because it was really confusing people, I just wanted it to be clear for people who probably didn’t realise they were breaking the law.

“If all these people had appealed their tickets, the council must have noticed something was up here.

“I guess the changes have come two years too late for some people.”

Coun Wares praised the council’s quick response to resolve the issue within four weeks and said that the changes would make it safer for both pedestrians crossing the busy road and traffic coming into the city.

He added: “Now that it is so much clearer where to park, it removes the risk and the ambiguity of where it is safe and legal to park making it fairer for people.

“The council were right to and needed to enforce the parking problem along there to try and stop it from happening.”

A Brighton and Hove City Council spokesman said the Highway Code made clear that there were stopping and parking restrictions along the urban clearway.

He added: “We’re making it doubly clear by marking bays outside the clearway where parking is allowed.

“There has never been any consideration of using this section of road as a cash cow and that is not the intention of the parking restrictions.

“The clearway, shown by a sign coming off the roundabout, was installed to prevent the danger of cars coming straight off a fast interchange into a row of parked cars.”