A GROUP of Newport mums could find their cars being fish-and-shipped away - because of a parking row with a local chippie.

Mums using the CJ's chippie car park in Malpas while they pick up their tots from Pillmawr playgroup found their cars clamped on Monday.

Five furious women had to pay £95 each to contractors City Pulse Security brought in by CJ's to have the clamps removed - or their cars would be towed away.

CJ's manager Karen Clarke said: "If there's no room in their car park that's not our problem, is it?"

She added that the parking problem reached its peak at the beginning of March. Ms Clarke said: "Because they're parking in our car park our customers either have to park on the double-yellow lines or they don't stop and we lose business."

But the mums, who say signs warning of clamping are not clear, say they are even more angry because they say the reason they were parking in the CJ's spaces is because chippie customers were hogging the playgroup's car park.

A Newport council cabinet member has now vowed to retaliate - with signs aimed at stopping chip shop clientele using the community centre car park.

Councillor Graham Dally said CJ's were not being "good neighbours". "They've asked for war and they've got it," he said.

"They should have said if they park there again they'll get clamped and then, if they do, it's their own fault.

"We've never stopped their customers using the car park in the past, but we're now having signs made to stop them."

Caroline O'Donnell, of Robertson Way, had her three-week-old son Ciaran with her when she collected daughter Niamh, three, on Monday.

The 28-year-old mum-of-three said: "I was gone for no more than two minutes and when I got back I had been clamped.

"I was mad. I went into the chip shop and told them what happened and they just said there was nothing they could do."