Revealed: The 6ft 4ins former cop and parish clerk team policing Polzeath's parking with hundreds of cones to deter tourists and locals from blocking the roads

A 6ft 4ins former cop and a parish clerk have been revealed as the team policing Polzeath's parking by using hundreds of cones to deter tourists and locals from blocking the roads.

Beach ranger Andy Stewart and St Minver Lowlands Parish Council clerk Marnie Court are behind the bright yellow markers which have been deployed to stop the rogue motorists.

Their intervention comes after the Cornwall village has become overrun in recent years with holidaymakers and surfers with problem parkers causing backlogs and delays.

Pictures from the main road of the tourist village, which is popular for its famous beach, show dozens of cones spaced out at regular intervals to prevent parking.

But Mr Stewart, 54, explains the situation has been caused by a 'parking anomaly' due to rain stopping the council from putting in double yellow lines after the single yellow lines were removed.

He said the situation of no yellow lines caused people to 'totally understandably' take part in chaotic parking free-for-all.

But he said they did not take into account that their actions would cause 'traffic carnage'. 

'We are kind of lucky here since we have the beach ranger service we are able to challenge it. I am sure there are a lot of towns and villages around the country that would just have to put up with it', he told MailOnline.

'Our primary concern is safety, the chances of the emergency services wanting to get through is remote but we did not want any gridlock to stop them taking the road through.'

Mr Stewart, who began working as a beach ranger in 2019, explains his operation works with the two parish councils in the village and Cornwall Council to work out problems when they arise.

He said: 'We always take a multi-agency approach. It is the most efficient way to carry out our responsibilities. I usually put a short-term remedy in place and then raise it with the authorities such as the highways authority who can put in something longer-term.'

Mr Stewart said he and Ms Court are '100 per cent a team' and said the parish council is essentially his employer by using the money it receives from Cornwall Council. 

'What happened in this scenario is that I raised these concerns to Marnie Court and sent pictures and videos to her and she acted as a conduit between us and the highways authorities, he said.

After being alerted to the problem by Ms Court, Cornwall Council's highways team worked quickly to put up the hundreds of cones needed to stop the village from descending into parking anarchy while villagers wait on the double yellow lines being painted. 

The parish councils have also taken control of Polzeath's two public toilets after Cornwall Council removed funding for them a few years ago. The parishes have since refurbished them and made them free to the public.

Polzeath's Beach Ranger Service has been so successful in recent years that Mr Stewart said he has received requests from other local authorities for advice.

He said: 'We have actually had contact from quite a few places around the country asking for a blueprint because having a service like this means the local authorities get protected. We can sort out a lot of the minor issues at the coalface and save the police and council resources.

'We are the smiling face of Polzeath'

But Mr Stewart rejects the claim that the parking problems have been caused by only tourists as he said locals were also making the most of the free parking. 

He said: 'People often look to blame someone, if you want to blame someone for this situation perhaps it should be mother nature due to the rain.' 

Mr Stewart is a lone beach ranger most of the year, but in the summer he is joined by two to three former police officers who help him clean up the beach.

In recent years the beach has become a haven for anti-social behaviour as teenagers descend at night and have been seen drinking, taking drugs, having sex and littering. 

Last year infra-red CCTV cameras captured hundreds of kids as they started fires, dumped broken bottles and caused mayhem.

The problem gets worse when top private schools such as Marlborough, Eton and Harrow break up for term as kids from nearby luxury holiday homes come to party.

The village in this affluent part of Cornwall has also been a favourite with the likes of David Cameron, who enjoys trips there with his family and has been seen bodyboarding at the beach. The former PM, who left Downing Street in 2016, owns a £2million holiday home in the village of Trebetherick, less than a mile from the beach.

The battles over parking in Polzeath come after a number of tourist hotspots in Cornwall have been facing similar headaches over rogue motorists. 

Residents of Falmouth said they have been facing a surge in popularity in recent years but warn the extra parkers have left 'not enough room for all the cars'.

A photo of shocking parking on Clare Terrace in the town in 2022 showed a large pick-up truck and a van parked over a speed bump, leaving a small gap down the centre of the hump. 

Parking spaces are so valuable across Cornwall that last year the village of Flushing became overrun with tourists' vehicles after holiday companies advertised it as 'all parking free of charge'.

Locals said that they could not park anywhere after holidaymakers started using their home as a car park.

They said that tourists were being directed there and then travelling to nearby resorts where parking can be expensive.

The firms were accused of directing holidaymakers to the Cornwall village - claiming it's free to park and 'much quieter' during peak times. 

Some Cornish locals even expressed their dismay when tourists at Towan Beach, Newquay, drove onto the beach with their cars to park on the sand last summer.

Shocking pictures from the town showed black and silver Mercedes' using the beach, which is populated with playing children, as a car park due to a lack of spaces elsewhere.