A WARDEN swooped to give a man a £3.20 parking ticket – for mooring his boat on the river for 10 minutes.

Ken Bywater said he had only just pulled his pleasure cruiser over to take on water at a designated point on the river Severn in Worcester when a warden told him to cough up a mooring charge.

The charge is designed to prevent boaters staying in places they should not for long periods of time.

Mr Bywater, who was on his way to Sharpness, Gloucester, for a holiday with his wife, has since contested the fine – and been told by city council officers that he will be getting his money back.

Mr Bywater, aged 57, said: “If I had been moored up there overnight then it would have been fair enough.

“But I had been there for 10 minutes taking on water using a British Waterways facility.

“The warden said, ‘You’re moored here, you’ve got to pay it’. My reaction was just one of shock.

“I have been boating for six years and never had a problem before.

“It says on the back of the ticket that Worcester is a great place to visit, but is it?

“If they keep giving out these tickets, it’s going to discourage people visiting Worcester.”

Mr Bywater, of Stourbridge, said the warden pointed him to a sign on the towpath running underneath the viaduct close to the Café Loco bar, off Croft Road. The sign tells boaters about the mooring charge.

Mr Bywater claimed that the sign was covered with weeds on Friday, September 4.

He said he paid the fee but decided to contest the charge following a discussion with the lock keeper at Diglis, Worcester.

A Worcester City Council spokesman said: “We do charge for overnight mooring and it is a nominal charge of £3.20. It is to prevent ‘gipsy mooring’.

“These tickets are given out fairly regularly and have been for a number of years. The majority of people are quite happy to pay up but if we got it wrong in this instance we are very sorry.

“However, the matter has now been resolved.”