Dozens of warning notices were slapped on the windscreens of second hand cars in the first days of a clampdown on selling vehicles from roadsides and verges.

Dozens of warning notices were slapped on the windscreens of second hand cars in the first days of a clampdown on selling vehicles from roadsides and verges.

Officers from the safer neighbourhood teams have been identifying hotspots in Jellicoe Road, Great Yarmouth, and Beccles and Middleton Roads in Gorleston where people they suspect are operating a business have been “getting away with it for years.”

Car clear co-ordinator Graham Carpenter said the joint operation between borough council and police was already having an effect with some cars removed from sale.

He stressed the crackdown, using powers handed to them from county, was focussing on “bigger fish” with the ordinary person trying to sell their own car likely to escape action.

Under the scheme cars suspected of being sold by a business-tax dodger will be issued with a warning notice, followed by a 24-hour deadline to remove the vehicle or have it towed away. If the owner does not come forward with proper documentation and insurance it will be crushed.

“We are going after people who we think may be involved in trading in motor sales and we are working with customs and trading standards. We are not targeting the man on the street, however if he is causing an obstruction or we do receive a complaint we will become interested.

“When I was down at Jellicoe Road last week three people came up to me and congratulated us and said they were fed up with people milling around and double parking and of the general obvious trading that spills over to their side of the road.”

Mr Carpenter added that an increase in the price of scrap metal had greatly reduced the amount of abandoned vehicles on the borough's streets, but the roadside trade in second hand car sales was booming.

In Jellicoe Road, notices had been removed from some cars he knew had been for sale the previous week indicating the campaign was probably having an impact.

“It's early days. It's just a question of seeing what the reaction is and at the moment it looks like some people are heeding what we are saying. We have had so many inquiries it's unbelievable.”

To contact the Car Clear Partnership call 01493 333371.