The leader of Reading Borough Council says she was "shocked" after learning how the council had wrongly dished out more than 6,000 parking fines to unsuspecting members of the public.

The Labour administration of Reading Borough Council has now apologised after the error was made public last week.

Jackie Yates, chief executive of the authority, admitted that 6,136 fines for driving infractions were wrongly issued due to errors in traffic regulation orders (TROs) - the legal instruments which restricts use of the road network.

A refund scheme has been set up today, costing the taxpayer an estimated £360,000 from the council's reserves.

In order for that scheme to be implemented, it had to be approved at a full council meeting.

Jackie Yates, chief executive of the council said: "These errors are entirely regrettable. We must focus on resolving them, and making sure they don't happen again."

The repayment webpage went live at 9am on Wednesday, October 16.

She says TROs have to be modernised, and a 'review of the culture' will be conducted.

Liz Terry (Labour, Coley), the leader of the council said: "I can only say when it was reported to me, I was of course shocked, but I immediately recognised my emotions wouldn't change anything. What we did was immediately investigate, and put actions to make the wrongs right."

She added that staff have done "an enormous amount of work" to discover TRO faults in four areas and devise a solution.

Cllr James Moore (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst) said: "I'd like to thank the internal audit team for turning over the rocks for this."

He also thanked Mrs Yates and Michael Graham for briefing councillors.

But other opposition councillors were more eager to point score, questioning why Mrs Yates had been tasked with informing the public, with no apology from lead Labour councillors up to this point.

Cllr David McElroy (Green, Redlands) said: "To state bluntly, the council has broken the law."

He also accused Labour lead councillors of 'deafening silence' over the scandal and being 'missing in action'.

Cllr Josh Williams (Green, Park) the chairman of the audit and governance committee sympathised with staff 'under constant pressure' due to staffing shortages, but was disappointed that Labour councillors had not apologised beforehand.

Cllr Isobel Ballsdon (Conservative, Caversham Heights) said: "A policy was lacking for officers to follow, which led to this mistake. The culture needs to be looked at and improved."

Her colleague cllr Raj Singh (Conservative, Kentwood) argued the council needs "time to reflect and pause" on the creation of new TROs, particularly for upcoming bus lanes.

Meanwhile, cllr Meri O'Connell (Liberal Democrats, Tilehurst) asked how people who have moved away from Reading or don't live in the town can find out whether they are eligible for a refund.

Mr Graham replied that the issue has received widespread media coverage, with him being confident that it has been widely publicised.

Micky Leng (Labour, Whitley) deputy leader of the council said: "First of all, I agree with the words of my leader, I think leadership has been shown.

"Most of all I want to apologise to those residents who were wrongly fined. It hit me like a train when I first heard about it."

Summing up, cllr Terry said: "I was clear when it came to my attention that there's no shrugging, you take responsibility. If things go wrong, we have to put it right. That's the leadership we have shown."

The repayment scheme and all actions to rectify the issue were approved unanimously at the full council meeting on Tuesday, October 15.