You’ve heard of crazy paving, but how about crazy painting?

Herts Advertiser: Botched yellow lines in St Albans' historic streets. Photo courtesy of Stephen PotterBotched yellow lines in St Albans' historic streets. Photo courtesy of Stephen Potter (Image: Stephen Potter)

Locals have been seeing red over yellow lines painted to deter motorists from parking in St Albans’ historic heart, with slapdash efforts appearing to make council bosses blush.

Just last week this paper forewarned of St Albans district council’s plans to put down double yellow lines in Market Place and Spencer Street.

For several months visitors to the city centre have enjoyed free parking as restrictions in the two roads have not been enforced after the council discovered its signage did not conform to the prescribed format.

What resulted, however, was a double dose of crooked parallel lines in glaring yellow where it appears that someone may have had an attack of the hiccups while painting, or possibly their attention was diverted when dodging a swooping pigeon.

Fuming locals have launched withering attacks on the tainted paint lines via social media.

On the St Albans past and present memories Facebook page one woman said: “What an absolute eyesore”.

One wit asked: “This has been done by children right?”

And Stephen Potter said: “You cannot paint yellow lines on cobbles and this should have been known.

“Painting over a pothole is a great idea too.”

Herts county councillor for St Albans central Chris White said: “This is the heart of the city and it is not acceptable that the district council should vandalise one of our finest streets with shoddy strips of yellow paint.”

Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate Sandy Walkington added: “It looks like a five year old has been let loose with a pot of paint. It’s just municipal vandalism of our historic cobbled streets.”

Meanwhile, the council has attempted to brush off criticism.

Mike Lovelady, head of legal services, said that the double yellow lines were a temporary measure “introduced for safety reasons while we are waiting for new parking enforcement legislation to come into effect.”

He said that cars were parking on both sides of the road and obstructing emergency vehicles.

However he did not gloss over the resulting paintwork, admitting, “the double lines are not straight and continuous due to the uneven road surface and a parked vehicle blocking parts of the road when they were being painted.

“The lining crew has since returned to tidy up the lines. The paint will be burned off and removed when we are once again able to use traffic signs to restrict parking in this area.”