A CANCER sufferer is considering taking legal action over a parking ticket dispute.

Leslie Tomkins, who has bone cancer and gets around on a motorised scooter, was fined £40 by the borough council for illegal parking on March 22.

He says he desperately needed the toilet and left his vehicle, which has a disabled badge, behind York Road in Ellesmere Port.

But the council insists he should have used a proper parking space.

Mr Tomkins, of Great Sutton, said: 'There was nowhere else to park. All the local bays for disabled drivers were full. And where I parked I couldn't see any yellow lines or anything else.'

'I contacted the council but they said I had to pay by June 1.

'I believe I had a perfectly valid reason for parking there.

Mr Tomkins, who is receiving radiotherapy at Clatterbridge Hospital in Wirral, reluctantly paid his ticket by June 1 so as not to incur further financial penalty.

But he said: 'I'm still angry at this and am going to see borough MP Andrew Miller. If nothing happens then, I will go to a solicitor.'

Council parking services unit manager Margaret Morris said: 'Our policy with disabled badge holders is they should use the marked disabled spaces and, if these are full, they can park in any other space.

'Anyone using the borough's car parks - disabled or not - has to park in the marked spaces or risk getting a ticket.'