Dealership crossing a line - neighbours

Dixon St residents Lenard Lamb and Lisa Miller live across from a car dealership that park its cars in the street, sometimes blocking the couple's driveway. PHOTO/HAYLEY GASTMEIER

A dispute has widened over a dealership's imported vehicles taking up Queen St's unlimited parking spaces with a Dixon St resident claiming the same problem on her street is "just as bad if not worse".

Several Queen St retail and service shop owners have said they are fed up with Auto Imports and Wholesale using the street as a storage depot for their unlicensed and unwarranted vehicles.

Lisa Miller and Lenard Lamb, who live opposite the dealership's Dixon St entrance, say they have "had 10 times more trouble" than some of the Queen St businesses with the company's "careless" parking.

The couple said on multiple occasions had they been unable to get in and out of their driveway due to the company's parked vehicles blocking their access.

On one occasion, when Ms Miller was due to pick her son up from soccer practice, she approached Auto Imports and Wholesale to move the car blocking her driveway and she was "laughed at" by the staff.

"They don't really seem to care," she said.

Mr Lamb, who chops and delivers wood as a hobby, said the parked vehicles became a problem for him when he needed to back his truck, and sometimes wood-splitter, in and out of the driveway.

Sometimes when their driveway has been blocked, the couple have had to park their vehicles down the street.

"On any given day, we have seven [Auto Imports and Wholesale] cars parked outside our house -- weekends as well," Ms Miller said.

"I have had to go to the council to get white lines put outside my driveway. And about three or four other houses have done the same, so [the dealership] can't park over our driveways or so close to our driveways that we can't get into them."

She said it had taken calling the Masterton District Council "once a week" for a stretch of time before any action was taken.

Since the lines were applied a couple of months ago, the car dealership had been parking their vehicles within the lines but "on an angle in the weekends when there are no parking wardens out".

The couple said this way the company could fit more cars into the spaces, but as a result the parked vehicles obstructed the view of oncoming traffic for residents pulling out of their driveways.

There have also been occasions when the couple has witnessed the company's vehicles parked in their driveway.

"Not across -- but in," Ms Miller said.

She said this had probably occurred after people had taken a vehicle for a test drive and had been unable to find a suitable park to return it to, due to the company's overflow of cars.

The couple said they had not had the same issues with Central Vehicle Brokers, another car dealership across the road from their house, who were "really obliging" as opposed to Auto Imports and Wholesale, who were "so blase".

A business owner on Queen St said the imported vehicles often took up all the parking spaces on the western side of Queen St from UCOL to The Warehouse between 8am and about 5.30pm.

Many of the vehicles parked along the road are unwarranted and without number plates.

Masterton District Council spokesman Sam Rossiter Stead said the council did not have the authority to issue tickets for unlicensed and unregistered vehicles, which is the responsibility of the police.

Masterton police said they were aware of the issue. They would not say whether tickets had been issued to the company.

Auto Imports and Wholesale director Lawson Hoggard declined to comment.