Neighbours who have put up with months of disruption from a building site will be banned from their own parking spaces.

Signs forbidding permit holders to use the bays in Walton Well Road in Walton Manor, Oxford, were put up three months ago to allow lorries to get to the Berkeley Homes 186-flat development at the former Lucy's factory.

Oxfordshire County Council, which is responsible for parking enforcement, has suspended the ban on parking between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday, after residents complained - but the measure is only temporary.

One resident, Ian McGlade, said: "My neighbours have been challenged by building workers and told they would have their cars towed away.

"So far, as a street, we have endured a great deal of disturbance with the redevel- opment of the site, including a long period of demolition work with all the debris in the air.

"It seems to me that Walton Well Road is being asked to bend over backwards to accommodate construction work that will not benefit our community in any way."

Residents were notified of the parking changes by road signs but most residents are still using the bays - without getting a ticket, because parking attendants have not enforced the ban so far. Mr McGlade said: "We are all still parking there as normal because most people hadn't noticed the signs."

Rameen Firoozan, managing director of Berkeley Homes, said: "It is a council-driven thing and it is part of the planning consent.

"For a period of time there will be a level of disruption to the normal parking.

"You can't please all of the people all of the time."

Ashley Prior, the county council's deputy area engineer, said the restrictions would not be enforced until absolutely necessary.

He said: "We hope this can be done with sensitivity to the needs of local residents who are quite rightly concerned as to how this affects them."

In a letter to Mr McGlade, he warned that nobody had a legal right to park outside their homes, and obstruction was a criminal offence.