Residents were left laughing after a frustrated businessman blockaded a "badly parked" car outside his County Durham warehouse by building a scaffold around it.

Colin Shaw was fed up after having to deal with cars parking in front of his warehouse on Stewart Street in Seaham for a long time, despite a clear "no parking" sign.

Seeing yet another car blocking the entrance on Tuesday was the final straw for Mr Shaw and he set about constructing a makeshift scaffolding blockade around the vehicle to teach its owner "a lesson".

Mr Shaw, the director of Seaham-based company Shaw Scaffolding Service, left a business sign for the driver to find with a list of phone numbers to discuss his parking, which he said caused him and his workers to miss out on work.

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The Northern Echo:

He said: "It's not the first time it's happened to my allotment where I store my materials, we have 'no parking' signs but people won't adhere to them.

"Today I went to get some materials from there to do a job, and I couldn't get in properly to get my equipment out due to somebody parking their car there, even though it was all signposted.

"I need to be in there 24 hours a day, so to teach them a lesson, I put scaffolding up around his car so he couldn't move it.

"He could have cost me a day's wage and my two men, we had work to do and it slowed us up a bit.

"People in the street were coming out watching and laughing, the woman next door couldn't believe what we were doing, she was laughing along."

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The Northern Echo:

Mr Shaw said he decided to put up the blockade to help the driver understand how he felt, and compared the action to something like "wheel-clamping." 

Later on, he met with the driver of the car who asked him if he knew anything about the scaffolding surrounding his vehicle, to which Mr Shaw confirmed that he did.

He said the two discussed the situation with the driver initially not seeing the "funny part," but the two ended the exchange amicably and shared a laugh.

Meanwhile, he added the incident ended up putting him an hour or two behind his work.

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Adding to this, the driver came to an agreement with Mr Shaw that if he ever did that again he would inform him to prevent blocking their way.

He also clarified that the "fine" he mentioned in a post online about the situation was said in jest, and said the man actually knew his father and they quickly resolved the issue.

"It all ended okay, we're all quite happy," Mr Shaw added.