A NORTH-EAST council made a string of errors when it took control of a city's parking from the police, according to a report.

Campaigner Neil Herron has been calling on Sunderland City Council to scrap on-street parking restrictions and refund everyone issued with a ticket since 2003 because of mistakes in the way it was implemented. He says the mistakes mean many restrictions are not legally enforceable.

Council chief executive Ged Fitzgerald and a special audit team investigated the Labour-run council's handling of the issue and found there were "significant weaknesses".

Mr Herron said the council, which has collected more than £5.4m from tickets and fines, "has done nothing right" but a council spokesman said it had already taken remedial action to put things right and would continue to correct errors.

The leader of the Conservative opposition, Councillor Peter Wood, said parking in the city had been "sloppily run".