Residents living in a picturesque UK town are forced to pay over £600 a year in parking charges - but still struggle to find a space, thanks to the "crazy" tourist demand. Locals in Tetbury, a historic market town in one of the prettiest parts of the Cotswolds, said the problem has become untenable, with many homeowners unable to park in the street and forced to shell out £640 on a season ticket for a busy car park.

While half of the parking bays at the West Street site are reserved for them, disgruntled residents said they are still not guaranteed to find a space due to the hordes of holidaymakers who regularly descend on the town while visiting King Charles III's nearby Highgrove estate.

Steve Tayler, 72, said: "[The permits are] about £600 a year, a hell of a lot, and there's no allocated spots for residents so it's just a free for all. Kenneth Ford, 68, added: "Everytime you go somewhere and come back, you could not have a space, so you could be paying the £600 a year for nothing." The town's season tickets dwarf their equivalents in some of London's wealthiest boroughs - with vehicles in the highest emission band charged £257 in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and £321 in Westminster.

"At the end of the day, like in all these towns, it's set up more for people coming into the town, rather than the residents," he said.

John Evans, 87, added that he'd recently seen a coach full of German tourists rock up in the car park, taking even more space away from locals. "It happens all the time. It's crazy!"

A lack of CCTV was also putting vehicles in danger of serious damage, Annie Bowen, 78, said. She and her husband "reluctantly" bought a permit for the West Street car park - but incurred £3,500 worth of damage when another car rolled into it after the handbrake was left on.

"There's nothing to protect you there," she warned. "What are we paying for? We're not designated a space. It's not safe and it's ridiculously expensive."

"We have a situation where because we have so many Airbnbs and second homes, people literally park where they see a space without thinking," Dee Buss, 78 added.

"In the house across [from us], there's an elderly disabled lady who had a hospital appointment on Saturday but couldn't get her car out because another had been parked over her entry.

"Obviously we're happy to have King Charles over at Highgrove, but there's so many tourists and it seems to leave Tetbury as the car park."

Councillor Paul Hodgkinson, of Cotswold District Council, said: "With officers from the council, I have spent time in Tetbury talking to residents, local businesses and other stakeholders, so have a good understanding of the issues they are facing.

"In recognition of the needs of season ticket holders, half of the standard parking bays in the West Street car park are allocated to them. While we understand that holding a season ticket does not guarantee a parking space and that these tickets are not exclusively for residents, opportunities to expand off-street parking in the town are unfortunately limited.

"In addition, we also provide the old rail yard car park in Tetbury, which is free of charge. We remain committed to ongoing dialogue with residents and businesses."

Parking rows also recently erupted in nearby Bibury - a Cotswolds hamlet dubbed "England's prettiest village" which is swarmed by up to 20,000 tourists each weekend.

Resident Mark Honeyball told the Express last year that congestion in Bibury was so extreme that emergency services weren't always able to attend to injured or endangered locals.

"We've had police cars not able to get through [which have] had to go round the country lanes to get past," he said. "We've had ambulances that haven't been able to get near to someone having a heart attack."