A CASE of bad parking drew the attention of Cirencester residents this week but the car in question was actually serving a purpose.

A silver car was parked across three spaces behind the jobcentre to protect the private spaces from being taken by inconsiderate members of the public.

A spokesperson for the jobcentre explained that the spaces were for members of staff who had to undertake home visits for unwell claimants and were sometimes taken by the time they got back.

This has led to jobcentre staff having to pay for parking across the street when they should be able to use their allocated work space.

Because of previous incidents involving people parking in these spots for as much as a fortnight staff agreed to solve the problem by making the spots inaccessible to people who had no right to use them.