A CARNFORTH pub landlord found his car park "at the eye of a storm" when customers were repeatedly fined £100.

Marcus Draper, who took over The Canal Turn in May 2015, had the Parking Eye system installed to discourage people who were not pub customers from taking up his 23 patron-only parking spaces.

However, he told the Gazette that the automatic number plate recognition system created so much "bad feeling" that he decided to scrap it after a month.

"I can tell you that in the real eye of the storm I was getting between 10 and 15 calls a day from customers that had been fined," said Mr Draper.

One driver was sent five fine letters in the space of two weeks. Meanwhile, several customers were fined for exceeding the 10-minute window between arrival and payment, by just one minute.

"The long and short of it is, we put it [Parking Eye] in place with the very best of intentions, to ultimately preserve car parking spaces for customers that were genuine to the pub, not to create ill will," said the landlord. "Unfortunately we generated more of the latter than the former."

The Parking Eye camera has already been removed, and the remainder of the system, operated by the Chorley-based company, is to be taken away next week.

The Canal Turn's car park is the only one in Carnforth to lead directly to the Lancaster Canal, said Mr Draper, hence its appeal. He said he appreciated that people had become accustomed to parking there without realising it was for patrons only.

However, with trade having doubled at the canalside pub since a refurbishment in spring, Mr Draper said he hopes people will refrain from parking there in future unless they are genuinely visiting the pub.