The council have forcefully removed abandoned vehicles from an area plagued by rouge traders and holidaymaker's cars.

Residents first contacted the Observer with concerns that dozens of cars were being left illegally at Upton Court car park by holidaymakers in September.

On visiting the car park on September 27, the Observer found the car park full and approached residents and park goes who said they had not seen any evidence of holiday goers but had noticed a surge in vehicles.

Gary, who was at the park cutting the hedges on behalf of Slough Borough Council said he thought the number of cars in the car park was "unusual".

"There are so many cars here. It's not usually this packed in the morning," he added.

Slough Borough Council said they were aware of the concerns and were reviewing actions.

At a council meeting on September 28, Sharon O'Reilly raised the issue with the council.

She said: "There have been over 200 cars parked in that [Upton Court] car park. Families cannot take their children into the play areas. Footballers have to park in the road, causing other people to drive into oncoming traffic.

"The people of Slough want this car park back."

In response to the meeting, the council has taken steps to ban overnight parking, with signs now up stating there is no parking after 9pm at night.

Slough Borough Council said: "These signs mean we can now target vehicles which are there more than 24 hours (overnight parkers), and place stickers on them which give the owners/users of the vehicles 24 hours to remove them.

"If they are not removed, we then have the power to remove them. And then people will have to pay to get them back."

In an update given by the council on December 13, a spokesperson said: "The situation at Upton Court Park has improved, although there is still evidence of the car park being used for unauthorised purposes.

"To date we have removed five abandoned vehicles and a further two are in the pipeline.

"We are also looking at introducing further parking restrictions in the New Year, in addition to the overnight parking restrictions currently in force."

In the long term, the council said that they would be considering lockable gates.

The spokesperson added: "We believe there may be a couple of issues with this car park - one is the possibility of rogue airport parking companies using it and two is a second-hand car dealer or dealers using the park as storage. Neither of which is acceptable.

"We will not be targeting vehicles of legitimate park users including the scout hut, the school or activity groups even if the car park is used past 9pm.

"We are targeting those who use this car park as a storage facility, blocking residents from being able to use the largest and most popular park in our borough."