The careless maintenance of a car park has left its users furious.

The car park in Drovers Way, St Albans, recently had its steps re-painted- but the ‘shoddy’ job has left the stairs in a worse condition than before.

Paint had dripped down the stairs and users of the stairwell were left with paint on their shoes and in their cars after the ‘wet paint signs’ were not clearly visible.

Following the poor paintwork last week, some work has been carried out to amend the situation but a Marshalswick resident, who did not wish to be named, is disappointed with the response.

She said: “I went into town yesterday and it still looks bad because now it’s worn down. It was poorly painted yellow in the first place.

“This is the car park that the new hotel are using. That’s the first impression people will see when they come to St Albans.

“To top it all off now some of the pay machines are not working, including the one nearest to the bad paint job.

“The amount of money that they charge, how on earth can they maintain the stairs so poorly?”

The council-owned car park is managed by NCP, which is responsible for the upkeep of the car park.

Following complaints from motorists, they will be taking action to prevent this happening again.

Business manager at NCP, Scott Morgan, said: “I’m completely embarrassed for us and all we can do is apologise profusely for this.

“It’s unacceptable, and we’re going to work hard to rectify it.

“I think we need to look into our training regime and look at ways we can improve it to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”