It's claimed Plymouth motorists are struggling to find parking in some areas because the number of permits vastly exceeds the available space.

Plymouth liberal democrat Stuart Bonar obtained figures which show in one area around the Hoe, 928 permits have been issued for just 551 spaces.

In other cases, some parking zones in the city have virtually no spaces available at all.

Mr Bonar says the city council needs to think of a more imaginative solution like offering discounts to smaller cars and writing to residents to inform them of the shortage of spaces.

Plymouth city council says the issue of permits outnumbering spaces is common to many towns and cities around the country.

In a statement, they say they have carried out a review of parking zones because of these inconsistenices and will be trialling some new ideas.

These include merging some zones and standardising time restrictions - the trials will take place later this year.