Frustrated drivers are resorting to guerrilla tactics to avoid heavy parking charges.

Armed with a spray can or marker pen, motorists are defacing signs displaying parking restrictions to leave their parked vehicles free from the risk of penalty notices in Brighton and Hove.

By law, parking attendants can only issue tickets if the parking restrictions are clearly visible.

If a motorist makes the sign nearest their car unreadable, they cannot be given a ticket.

Brighton and Hove City Council condemned the vandalism, prevalent in the Seven Dials area, and warned that culprits would be prosecuted.

The Argus found a vandalised sign at the end of Compton Avenue, near the railway station, at 3pm on Friday. Information stating the parking spaces were for permit holders only had been blacked out.

Philip Anthony, who lives opposite the obscured sign, said it was little wonder motorists were resorting to desperate measures in order to park their cars.

The sixth-form teacher said: "I have lived here for almost two years and I still can't get a parking permit from the council.

"The parking regulations are outrageous.

"Luckily, I have a parking space at my work nearby and I leave my car there most of the time.

"But at the weekend when I have to leave my car here I have to remember to come back every two hours to move it."

Mr Anthony, 52, said the council must respond to residents' growing anger.

He said: "The council needs to see that people are unhappy and change the regulations, at least by allowing more residents to have permits or longer stays."

Mr Anthony stopped short of praising the law-breaking tactics of the sign-sprayer but said: "I understand his frustration. If it makes the council take notice then all power to him."

A council spokeswoman said: "If the signs are missing or obscured then the restriction cannot be enforced but, of course, to spray over a sign is criminal damage and if the culprit is caught, he will face prosecution by the council.

"It is a selfish way to dodge parking charges and causes problems for other law-abiding road users as well as forming part of the quarter of a million pounds which graffiti removal costs the city taxpayer every year."