A YOUNG father has called out a supermarket’s "unfair" parking scheme where residents can now be slapped with a £70 fine.

Chris Waites, who lives in Long Wittenham, said the new parking scheme at Aldi in Didcot is "ridiculous" and does not take into account people who car share or have families.

Enforced by CCTV cameras, shoppers entering the supermarket have a one-and-a-half hour time limit before being faced with a fine.

The new restrictions also prohibits customers returning within four hours.

The 29-year-old said: "I completely understand that the supermarket has to put in restrictions to stop people parking there all day for free, not using the store and using the train station, but this no return in four hours is ridiculous.

"I have a young daughter and there have been countless occasions where we have been to Aldi, got all the way home and remembered we have forgotten something for the baby and had to go back.

"With no guards or anyone to speak to, just CCTV cameras you can’t then go back in otherwise you will get slapped with a fine."

Mr Waites said Aldi was his family’s nearest supermarket and because he and his wife share a car they would now have to check with each other when they had last visited it.

He said: "It just seems silly that now we’re going to have to check and see if we’ve been in the last four hours because otherwise the other can’t go in.

"When I spoke to someone at the store as they handed out leaflets about the change all the response I had was ‘tough luck’."

Mr Waites received the following response from the supermarket’s customer services team: "ParkingEye will manage the Didcot car park using number plate recognition cameras that monitor cars entering and leaving the car park.

"The terms and conditions include a clause stating that visitors are unable to return to the car park within four hours to help prevent abuse of our car parks.

"The reason that this clause is in operation is certainly not designed to punish our genuine customers, it is prevent non-Aldi customers abusing the car park, simply leaving after a certain time, driving round the block and returning to the car park to abuse it again."

The new car park management scheme was introduced this month.

A spokesman for the supermarket said the company was forced to introduce the charges to prevent residents abandoning their car for hours while they used the train station.

They said: "We have car park management systems in place across a number of our UK stores, to encourage fair usage and ensure car parking availability for our customers.

"Aldi’s Didcot store will have a free parking limit of 90 minutes, and allows customers a ten-minute grace period in addition to this."