A CARER is furious after disabled spaces in a Bournemouth council car park were replaced with a bin store.

Hazel Malcolm-Walker relies on the spaces in the Landseer Road car park in Westbourne to visit the Westbourne Medical Centre opposite, but said they have been out of action for more than a week.

The bays were marked with a hash box and a sign erected stating ‘bin store’.

Bournemouth council has said the change was an error by the contractor and it was apparently rectified over the weekend.

Mrs Malcolm-Walker said the involvement of the Echo had helped.

"If it hadn't been for the pressure brought by the Echo I am pretty sure the u-turn would not have been achieved," she said.

"I think the council were caught out.

"Maybe they thought people wouldn’t notice but this would have caused us a lot of inconvenience."

The spaces had several large bins placed on them, with recently painted ‘Bin Store Only’ on the ground.

Ian Malcolm-Walker added: “We’ve lived here for 14 years and the spaces have always been here. We park here regularly. Over the road there isn’t a drop kerb for the chair so it’s more difficult."

He added: "When we went into the council offices they didn’t seem to know anything about it until we told them."

Paul Hastings, Bournemouth council operations manager, said last week: “There have been some ongoing discussions around the storage of bins in this location.

“Unfortunately, the lines marking out the location of the new proposed bin store have been painted in error by our contractor and are in the process of being rectified. The two disabled parking spaces will therefore be reinstated.”