It has been warned that residents’ cars have been blocking council vehicles as they clean gullies leading to them being impounded.

Glasgow City Council runs a gully blocking and cleaning scheme but sometimes residents don’t move their cars from streets being cleansed despite orders to do so.

Govan councillor Imran Alam, Labour, said he feared cars not being moved when gully cleaning takes place could decrease the effectiveness of it and said he noticed council vehicles just having to “pass around” them.

Explaining the process of drain cleaning in areas, a council official said the local authority has moved cars and issued tickets to make sure equipment can access gullies.

She said: “We will go around before we work in an area and put out notices so people are aware that they need to move their cars.

"The vast majority of people will do so but obviously, some may be on holiday or for some reason don’t move their car.”

The officer told this week’s Operational Performance and Delivery Scrutiny Committee that when cleansing is underway the council will have vehicle lifting equipment available and parking wardens on duty in the streets.

She added: “We do lift them (vehicles) sometimes street to street or to the pound. ”

She said the council makes people aware they may have their car moved and they could get tickets as parking wardens are also in attendance.

Councillor Alam said: “I don’t agree with that unfortunately. In my experience there is no traffic enforcement at all.”

He pointed to Paisley Road West as an example where residents’ cars were left with no vehicle lifting taking place or tickets being issued.

He said: “People who have made the effort to remove vehicles in order to get the gullies in front of their homes cleaned lose out. ”

The discussion took place as officials presented a report on the council’s response to flooding, gully maintenance and drainage capacity

Councillor Chris Cunningham, SNP, said some residents perceive there is a “lack of gully cleaning” on localised streets.

He said: “My own view of this is we are not going to be able to gully clean our way out of climate change.”

Referring to council statistics on flood reporting related to gully cleaning, he pointed out when there are “incidences of severe rainfall the system is overwhelmed.”

He added: “The issue here is how we deal with climate change and the consequences of climate change.”

A number of Glasgow areas recorded an increase in flooding and blocked drains after severe weather despite gully unblocking by the council according to a report presented to the committee.

But five areas had fewer problems after the scheme.

The local authority runs a “risk based, cyclical gully maintenance programme” with gullies subject to flood risk emptied three times a year, those on main roads cleaned once annually and neighbourhood drains cleansed every two years.