The definition of misleading says Tik Tok star Zoë Bread in battle with Manchester City Council

Creator Zoë Bread parked on Collier Street in Castlefield last week and received a £50 fine for making what she calls a “common’ error.

Zoë stays anonymous in her videos, earning fame on the platform for her satirical t-shirt designs.

She told her 1.3m TikTok followers she “parked for six minutes with the wrong ticket because of the arrow pointing direction”.

The influencer had parked in one of the five on-street bays on Collier Street, where there is a sign telling motorists to go down the road to a pay machine.

But Zoë, who also has 172k Instagram followers, claims the sign is ‘misleading’ because it points towards a private SIP car park pay machine, which has a yellow ‘pay here’ sign above it.

In fact, drivers parking on Collier Street need to walk around the corner to Beaufort Street for the correct payment terminal.

Zoë then launched a ‘stake out’ to find a traffic warden to speak about her problem after her appeal was rejected.

Documenting her adventures online, Zoë also created her own sign to advise motorists not to use the SIP machine.

During the video series, Zoë downloaded council parking data to work out how many fines have been issued on the road, claiming penalties shot up after the SIP car park opened between May 2018 and April 2019.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service has examined the same data, and found 90 fines were issued on Collier Street in 2018/19, compared to 311 in 2023/24, the last full year data was available.

That represents a 246pc increase, something Zoë attributes to the sign confusion.

“If you’ve never parked there before, you see it says pay over there with an arrow, so you just go over there to the big ‘pay here’ sign,” said Zoë in one exchange with a council employee on the video.

“The security guard nearby said it happens 10 times a month.

“It’s literally the definition of misleading because I was misled by it.”

After the videos went viral, being watched more than two million times, a spokesperson for the council said it will review the sign.

A statement said: “While the council believes there is clear signage indicating there is a private car park in operation at the Collier Street Arches and that the majority of people are able to purchase a valid parking ticket, we appreciate there has been some confusion amongst a small number of motorists who have bought a ticket from the wrong machine.

“However, the council will explore if additional signage is needed to ensure that in the future, motorists are directed to the correct ticket machine.”

The above story was sourced by Local Democracy Reporter Ethan Davies. Zoë Bread was contacted for comment.