By TRACEY KANDOHLA, REPORTER and JOSE RAMOS, NEWS REPORTER
Parking in a residential street has become 'so horrendous' people are fighting over spaces.
As parking wars erupt in Forest Fields, just a mile from Nottingham, locals have become fearful of punch-ups and verbal abuse by exasperated drivers unable to find a gap between bumper-to-bumper vehicles.
As residents are begging their council and police to step in to help provide a solution, one householder, Mr Singh sighed: 'The situation is just crazy.'
The 43-year-old retail manager, who has lived in one of the worst-hit streets - Burford Road - all his life said: 'There are physical punch-ups outside because of the parking nightmare, and people effing and blinding because there's no space anywhere near their home.
'You hear them shouting 'You f**** idiot' and as people get more wound up, and some here in this city having lost the plot, you wonder if it could result in a terrible injury or worse still a death.
'It's shocking to witness, and we have a lot of kids and elderly people living in the street.'
Mr Singh, who has only one car in his family, said: 'One car goes and another one comes along immediately and takes the space.
'If I take my car out in the morning, I often can't find a place when I come back and have to park in neighbouring streets, a ten-minute walk away.'
As parking wars erupts in Forest Fields, just a mile from Nottingham, locals have become fearful of punch ups and verbal abuse by exasperated drivers unable to find parking
Residents are begging their council and police to step in to help provide a solution
Builder Neil Smith, told how he was often forced to park his van a 10-minute walk away in another street, and walk back and forth with his tools to store in his house
Mr Singh continued: 'The problem is there are lots of HMOs (house in multiple occupation) around, student accommodation and rental properties and those people have cars too.
'Plus some families here who own their houses have two or three vehicles per household, and there are only a few properties with off-street parking.'
At times, Mr Singh is so desperate that when he's going out, he asked his sister who lives nearby, to drive round in her car and park in the space he is leaving to save it for his return.
He said: 'That is the state of play here and that's often what I have to to keep my spot in the street.
'Also some cars are left parked up for one of two weeks without being moved. What is going on there?'
Mr Singh added: 'I'm always calling up the city council and hammering onto them about reintroducing parking permits against like we used to have 10 years ago.
'In March the year we were promised permits but the council backed down saying it had no funds available for the scheme. It's ridiculous!'
'We used to have free residents permit with every household being issued with one permit and one visitor's permit and it worked well.
'But there was a petition against it as more people had more cars and it was withdrawn.
Sarah Spurgeon, pictured, said when students return for the term, parking becomes 'even more of a nightmare as so many of them have cars'
Desperate residents of Burford Road often rely on asking friends or family to drive to the road to park on their road to save a parking space
'It's a shame because it's a nice road to live in but the parking spoils it. It is so horrendous.'
His sister, who happened to be visiting her brother, said: 'It's a pain to park anywhere in this street or nearby ones. We've literally seen people get out of their car, use fisticuffs, and fight for a space.'
Builder Neil Smith, who has a large Vauxhall Vivaro van for work, told how he was often forced to park a 10-minute walk away in another street, and walk back and forth with his tools to store in his house.
The father-of-two said: 'The road is normally always chock-a-block and I can't get my work van anywhere near my house.
'This van is my livelihood with £10,000 worth of tools, which I don't want to leave inside, and at time I have to cart my stuff back and forth, which is an hour's job after working.
Mr Smith, 55, has lived in the long street crammed with Victorian properties in one of Nottingham's most deprived communities for 15 years.
He agrees that the parking issue is 'horrendous' and blames the surplus of vehicles belonging to students with 'mummy and daddy buying them a car' and taxi drivers.
He explained: 'There are a lot of student rooms in the big houses and there's a halfway house up the road for taxi drivers.
'Sometimes there's as many as eight taxis parked on the road. The drivers do day and night shifts with some sleeping while others are driving.'
IT worker Rajendra Thakur, dad to a two-year-old toddler daughter, pictured, complained: 'We live in a flat and there is a driveway for my neighbour's car but selfish people often park across it which blocks them in'
He said another cause of the parking chaos was an 'overspill from the nearby park and ride' where drivers travelling on the trams into the city centre had a designated place to pay and park, but with some parking in his street for free.
Mr Smith said: 'The park and ride is down the hill, you can see it from my house, but people are incorrectly parking.
'The situation has got worse over the past months and I've never seen so many cars here!
'I think the solution would be parking permits and I've spoken to the council, community police and traffic wardens but nothing is ever done.
'Opposite my house two cars have been parked up for months. It's not fair.'
Mr Smith, who moved with his partner from the leafy village of East Bridgford, Notts, said: 'It was a bit of a shock to the system moving here!
'It's a lovely house and at times I could pick it up and place it elsewhere.'
He is dreading October when the annual 10-day Goose Fair is held at Forest Recreation Ground.
He said: 'The roads all around are absolutely rammed' when the traditional fun fair visits.
One local blames the surplus of vehicles belonging to students with 'mummy and daddy buying them a car' and taxi drivers
He recalled an incident during the event last year, saying: 'My other half had put two wheelie bins outside our house to keep a place for my van and nearly getting into a fight with visitors to the fair moving them to park.
'She told them the space was needed for my work van but they hurled abuse at her saying "We can park where we want" which of course they can and ignored her pleas of "But we live here,"
'We've complained to the police when the fair if on but they say there's not a lot they can do to control the parking although a few roads are blocked off.'
IT worker Rajendra Thakur, dad to a two-year-old toddler daughter, complained: 'Parking is a real problem here.
'We have one car, a Volvo, and I often can't park it outside my house and have to go to a neighbouring street and carry our daughter and all her belongings round.
'It can be very inconvenient.
'We live in a flat and there is a driveway for my neighbour's car but selfish people often park across it which blocks them in.'
Mr Thakur, 35, said he would happily spend £50-£60 on a parking permit if is guaranteed him a space outside his home.
Pensioner Brian Henson, has lived in Forest Fields for decades, likened the inner city area to the M1 with bumper-to-bumper car
He said parking was 'absolute Hell' during Goose Fair.
Local Jade, who has lived int he street for 14 years, blames the problems on some households having two or three cars.
She said: 'We have just one car but there's a lot of families with several vehicles and even many if the students have cars now.
'Sometimes we have to block the road to unload our car, which people moan about, then drive into another road to park and walk five or ten minutes back home.
'It can be a real pain and a bit of a nightmare especially when Goose Fair is on.'
Sarah Spurgeon, Neil Smith's partner, said the parking issues were particularly bad for her family.
She suffers form health conditions and arthritis, and often her 74-year-old father comes over from his home miles away to help with her two sons.
She sad: 'But sometimes when he comes over he can't park anywhere near our house and ends up leaving his car streets away and having to walk.
'When the students are back for the new term in September parking is even more of a nightmare as so many of them have cars.'
Chris Tynes, 24, grumbled that he can never find a space near his house and it was 'very frustrating.'
Another neighbour believes permits would help solve the problem
He said: 'I think that permits would be great, but a lot of my neighbours have multiple cars, and it's not exactly a rich area, so I don't know whether they would be able to pay for multiple permits.'
He insisted: 'Something needs to be done. It's terrible here, especially during school time.'
Pensioner Brian Henson, has lived in Forest Fields for decades, likened the inner city area to the M1 with bumper-to-bumper cars and vans that are near lorry-sized and blocking the sunlight out of his terraced house.
He said: 'I think if the permits operated well, it might stop these massive vans parking here, they are often parked here for three or four days, and what they are doing is taking up two or three spaces.
'I keep thinking it's been snowing when the light is blocked out.'
Mr Henson, 69, who no longer drives, said: 'The bin lorries can just about get down here, but if they can't, they often have to bang on people's doors to get their cars out of the way.
'I think permits would be a good idea, but I think it would be hard to police it. But something needs to be done, it's frustrating.'
Burford Road seen with most of the roads filled up with parked cars
Hamzah Khan, 30, also believes permits would help solve the problem.
He said: 'It's insane. You look over the road at the permitted roads, empty, then you look at my road, not a space in sight.
'I have to park about 15 minutes away on a bad day, it's so frustrating when you get back from work, and then you have to walk a mile.
'Permits would be nice yeah, but my family have a few cars as we all work so it will be an extra cost for the house.
'I know that people here wouldn't want to pay any more money to the council either, we pay enough council tax, but it's just sad that we don't even have the option to park anywhere remotely near where we live.'
Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos said she constantly receives complaints about the parking nightmare saying: 'I don't think that there is a road that people haven't complained about to me.
'We are getting the overflow from the NET car park after people started getting clamps, and overflows from the schools and people going into Hyson Green,
I think a resident parking scheme will just push the problem onto Basford.
'Residents aren't happy about it.'