A NEW car parking restriction in Hexham has seen 17 parking tickets handed out.

The 24-hour limit (no return within four hours) in long-stay/all-day car parks in Hexham, Alnwick, Berwick and Morpeth was brought in by Northumberland County Council from the start of December 2018.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that since then, a total of 98 penalty charge notices (PCNs) have been issued for parking beyond the maximum stay.

The authority issued warning notices in December in relation to the new rules before starting with PCNs on January 2 this year.

The 17 tickets in Hexham were issued at the Wentworth and Gilesgate car parks.

More than half of the tickets issued throughout the county were in January with another 21 in February and only single-figure totals across the four towns since then up to the end of July.

A 72-hour maximum stay for some non-town-centre car parks was also introduced at the same time.

A total of four PCNs were issued in Ponteland as a result.