A SUPPORT group which helps local families in crisis is struggling to keep up with constant parking fines issued outside their support hub.

Ayrshire Women’s Hub have lodged several complaints to Ayrshire Roads Alliance, after kind hearted helpers who dropped off essential supplies to their Alloway Street base were hit with parking tickets.

Founder Angie McPike has grown sick of the stream of tickets and fears the fines will put off further donations.

She told the Ayr Advertiser: “They are actually killing the town centre for what they are doing. They don’t give anybody any leniency. It’s costing everybody a fortune to park, including kind people who just want to donate to us. It’s also putting off people picking up stuff. It’s them who get the ticket.”

The hub has been providing aid and support to struggling families since their opening in March last year. Examples of items dropped off or picked up include beds, food and clothes.

Angie was left astonished when one desperate mum was given a ticket as she dropped in to get bags of donated clothes for her kids.

She added: “This has also affected the people who are picking up essentials for themselves, because they desperately need it.

“I paid a parking ticket for a woman who was coming to pick up clothes for her kids, there was so many bags how was she meant to load it anywhere else?”

Since April, the hub have challenged three parking tickets with one in June coming from when they tried to pack buggies into a South Ayrshire Community van to take 16 young children on a day out.

Angie described that as the “final straw”, adding: “We parked the bus in the loading bay to put the double buggies into it because it would be easier. It meant we weren’t out the building for too long. It would be easier for the girls to get to it.

“We came back to find the attendant was issuing us with a ticket. I had a huge argument with the woman.”

In another incident Angie recalled, picking up food from Iceland after a gift card was donated to the hub, and despite asking where would be best to park, the same attendant still issued her with a fine.

Angie has now sought legal advice, to challenge three unpaid parking tickets since April which now amount to £180.

A local lawyer confirmed that further action will be taken if Ayrshire Roads Alliance are unwilling to cancel tickets.

Claire Currie, of First Legal said: “Its just ridiculous. They are dealing with vulnerable people, looking after children and they don’t receive any funding from the local authorities. ”

A spokesperson for Ayrshire Roads Alliance said: “There is a ‘goods vehicle only’ loading bay located near the Alloway Street/ Dalblair Road junction.

“Only vehicles classed as goods vehicles can utilise this type of bay for loading purposes and the attendants enforce the restriction accordingly. We do not target any particular groups or organisations and only deal with illegally parked vehicles as we come across them.”