FURIOUS residents rounded on wheel clampers outside their Loughton homes after they were ordered to pay up to £95 to release their cars, despite having valid parking permits.

Roxanne Hadfield, 23, has lived at Cassis Court near Debden Station where all residents are issued valid parking permits for their own vehicles and a visitor's permit permitting use of the communal car park outside the block of flats for just over 12 months.

Clamping firm PCS Parking Control went to Cassis Court on Saturday, January 10, and immobilised 11 cars. Some were displaying visitor permits which had expired and should have been replaced by PCS late last year, while others had residents permits which had come unstuck from the windscreen and were out of view.

Miss Hadfield said: "They're just normal plastic stickers which go on the windscreen but the trouble is they keep falling off. The clamping guy saw all this but still wouldn't release the clamp."

Despite attempts by angry residents to persuade the clampers that their vehicles were parked legally they were told to pay up or face having their cars towed away.

Terry Ansell, of Oakpower Management, managing agents for Cassis Court, said PCS had admitted its staff were wrong.

"PCS is fully aware of what happened," he said. "It has admitted it made a mistake in relation to those vehicles displaying visitor's parking permits. As for vehicles with residents parking permits, that's between the individual and the clamping company."

Mario Ireland, new business manager at PCS, said each case was being dealt with by the company on an individual basis.

"We are investigating each individual case and once we've completed our investigations into what happened, if somebody is due a refund they will be given one."