Southend's biggest Tesco store has brought in a private firm to stop office workers leaving their cars in its car park all day long.

Parking for the store, on the Prince Avenue roundabout, Southend, has always been free, but the spaces are supposed to be for shoppers only.

Store manager Colin Penn claimed more than 100 spaces were being taken most weekdays by people who work nearby - particularly at the Royal Bank of Scotland office - usually from about 8am to 4pm.

The store has now brought in parking firm Euro Car Park to enforce a two-hour limit on spaces.

Mr Penn said: "The car park has been abused for some time, which means there is often nowhere for our shoppers to park.

"It's not aimed at everyday shoppers, it is aimed at people who don't use the store. Clearly, our customers are still very welcome to park and there has already been a big improvement."

Euro Car Park will clamp down on rogue parkers by sending attendents to the car park regularly to take note of registration numbers. All vehicles parked in a space for more than two hours will receive a £50 ticket.

A spokeswoman for the Royal Bank of Scotland, which has 2,500 employees at the Southend office, said: "We have 750 car parking spaces available for our staff. Staff have been reminded as recently as last week and yesterday that they are not to park in our neighbours' car park."

She said the RBS also had car-sharing schemes for staff, but said there were no plans to build a new car park or expand the current one.

Leeanne Davies-Bright-well has already been stung by the new inspectors - she was given a ticket for parking in a disabled bay on Friday.

She was with her 19-month-old son and said she mistakenly thought it was a mother-and-baby bay.

Tesco accepted this and agreed to let her off.