The fire service was called to a car balanced precariously over a large drop – and as you can see from the picture ’precarious’ is an apt description.

Crews used a winch to secure and right the vehicle along Dartmouth’s Castle Road on Saturday afternoon.

A Dartmouth Fire Station spokesman said: ’Parking is becoming a more and more common hazard to the emergency services and to this incident one of our appliances sustained some damage due to not only poor parking, but people also removing cones placed to prohibit parking.

’It shouldn’t need mentioning but please when you park, please park legally and responsibly. You never know if an emergency vehicle may need to get past you.’

It was assumed the driver was attending the Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta.

Picture courtesy of Dartmouth Fire Station