RESIDENTS are campaigning for urgent action over lorries, mobile homes, commercial vehicles and cars parking nose to tail for months on end outside their homes.

Campaign leaders are to submit a proposal to Brighton and Hove City Council’s transport committee to bring forward consultations for a controlled parking zone from 2021 to this year.

They said they will be supported at the meeting by residents of Surrenden Road and 21 surrounding streets who say they are fed up with paying council tax to live in a car park.

Up to 70 vehicles have been parked on a long-term basis in the area by owners who refuse to pay parking charges in other parts of the city.

Residents said a national car rental company had been using Surrenden Road to park 18 of their hire cars.

They said the situation is chaotic and causing danger to road users, pedestrians and preventing car owners from parking near their homes. They claim the problem is substantially worse than when the council conducted a survey in 2015 and has now reached crisis levels.

The Surrenden Area Parking Campaign group said their survey showed 89 per cent of respondents felt parking has become more difficult in the last three years and 80 per cent said it has made the area more hazardous for traffic using the roads.

Poorly parked high-sided vehicles are a particular problem. A petition has been signed by nearly 550 people and is now being supported by Withdean Ward councillors who have recognised the seriousness of the situation.

Campaign chairwoman Mary Allen, who lives in Surrenden Road, said: “We cannot allow this situation to go on for another three years.

“Our main concerns are for elderly residents, students and children who find it difficult to cross the roads, bus services unable to pull in fully at some bus stops and access for emergency vehicles.”

Campaigners said the situation has worsened since the council introduced resident parking zones in other parts of the city. Vehicle owners who did not want to apply for permits or pay for parking moved their trucks, motor homes and vans into the Surrenden Road area to avoid the charges.

A council spokesman said: “The Surrenden area is already on our agreed timetable for consideration for controlled parking, and later this year we will be bringing forward proposals for the area that is to be consulted.”