1. For this man in Clifton, the residents parking scheme is the worst thing to happen to the area since the Luftwaffe.

This sums up much of the tone of Parking Wars on ITV, with angry ballet dancers, confrontations with parking staff and even a masked saboteur on the streets of Montpelier.

 

2. “Gracefully moving through Bristol’s congested streets can be more than a merry dance,” narrator Hugh Bonneville says.

‘Dance’. See what he did there? This programme features dancers.

 

3. This is Felicity. She’s so cross about the parking meter outside her dance school in Clifton that she hits it.

 

4. Angela, Felicity’s 97-year-old mum, still dances despite three hip operations. She’s not happy either.

 

5. “When we first spotted it outside our front door, we were annoyed.”

“Incandescent!” adds Felicity.

 

6. “It’s not staying. No. Just no.”

Well that’s clear then.

 

7. To foreboding classical music, the line painters arrive in Clifton.

 

8. “It’s been the worst attack on Clifton since the Luftwaffe.”

Yes, he really just said that out loud. On television.

 

9. The signs arrive. Things are getting serious now.

 

10. Tony, owner of The Mall Newsagents, estimates that he lost about 50 customers a day when the scheme arrived.

That’s the equivalent of £2,000 a week. “The whole thing has been really really badly managed by Bristol City Council and the mayor. It’s a complete shambles.”

 

11. “Bristol’s Montpelier…” Bonneville continues after the ad break.

Hang on, Hugh, that’s not Montpelier. The clue is in the writing.

 

12. But who’s this?

 

13. “I saw the back of him,” says a woman in Albany Green.

 

14. Those red trousers look familiar

 

15. Ah. That’s not who we were expecting.

 

16. In Star Wars, Darth Vader destroys planets. In Bristol, he paints over yellow lines.

 

17. It’s not just Darth. Daph is fighting against the new scheme as well.

“Us pensioners you see, we have got time on our hands. You either join the WI or become a pensionista.”

 

18. As the line painters arrive in Montpelier, this man strolls casually down the middle of the road.

It’s Paul Saville, scourge of our elected mayor. 

 

19. “Don’t spray my bike. Don’t spray my bike!”

 

20. “I’m standing here as a free human being, mate.”

Perhaps the best answer ever given to the question, “So what job are you doing here?”

 

21. “You say, ‘I’m just doing my job’. That’s what the Nazis said. And it’s not personal to you.”

It’s not personal.

 

22. Look – it’s someone in favour of residents parking!

“I’m somewhat in favour of residents parking. People in the Montpelier area are used to living in a party suburb. It’s just a little bit chaotic. If something can be done to introduce a little bit of order, I just think that would be better.”

 

23. Of course, Paul doesn’t feel the same way.

“Get going. Please go away now, Paul,” someone tells him.

“You want me to go?”

“Yes.”

 

24. Daph the pensionista is not a fan of the lawbreaking.

“If people have been taking down signs and moving cones, who knows what they’ll do next. It doesn’t seem like the right way to get your voice heard. But what can we do?”

 

25. So she goes back to sit on her sofa on the pavement.

Cheers!

 

26. Back in Clifton, the pay and display machine outside the dance school has been repositioned and it’s ready to be fired up.

 

27. But nobody has been issued with any permits, Felicity tells the man from the council.

“I know,” he says. “It’s just my manager’s told us to turn them on.”

“So what do we do?” Felicity asks.

“No idea. Phone up the number on there. They’re in charge of that side of things.”

 

28. “Frustration knows no bounds at the moment.”

Felicity phones parking services saying that she has applied for three permits but none have come through. “I can’t answer you in all truth,” the lady on the phone tells her.

 

29. “They’re robbing us aren’t they. They’re thieving.”

Angela carries on: “It’s killing us.”

There’s more: “It’s more like the old Communist countries, where you have not a king or a queen but a dictator.”

 

30. A fiddle adds to the sense of occasion in Montpelier as Daph takes her blue badge campaign to a key council meeting.

 

31. “Treat it as if you’re going to the panto” is Daph’s advice for going to City Hall.

 

32. “Someone, somewhere is getting it very wrong, maybe your transport department.”

Daph addresses George Ferguson, but he is unrepentant:

 

33. “I have total trust in the members of my transport department, who are working in the best interests of Bristol.”

“How dare you, George, how dare you,” is one response to that statement from the packed public gallery.

 

34. Felicity is still incandescent.

“Wake up, man,” she tells Ferguson from the public gallery.

“I know that you are trying to give a picture of confusion,” the mayor says.

“It’s not confusion,” Felicity shrieks. “It’s mayhem!”

 

35. Things get heated.

“What are you doing?” Paul shouts as he is unceremoniously bundled out.

 

36. “I’ve not been a threat to anyone. He just nearly snapped my neck off!”

He continues arguing with security: “People saw it! He stood on two women’s ankles.”

 

37. Dee attempts to talk some sense into him

“You got a bit riled didn’t you? There’s a certain decorum that you need to have in the council office,” Dee tells Paul.

 

38. A few months later, Tony breaks the bad news that his shop is closing.

Even trying to sell more chocolate couldn’t save them. 

 

39. While at the dance school, the mood is calmer – with no complaints about the new parking regulations.

Andrea is still scrapping, however: “We’ll fight them on the dance floor. We’ll never give in. Until we’re crushed.”

“We’re not going to be crushed,” Felicity reminds her mum.

“We’ll never be crushed.”

All photos courtesy of ITV. Watch Parking Wars on ITV Player here.