Exposed: The man behind the menace of the rusty red vans blighting suburbia with their ads

Terry Kilty, 51, can today be unmasked as the brains behind the business that residents claim spoils their neighbourhoods.

The vehicles, parked across a swathe of south London, advertise a man and van for hire.

Terry Kilty says the vans are not left in one place for long but residents say some are not moved for years

We first met up with Kilty earlier this month. He claimed he was called Jack and was just a driver, employed by a man called Henry who was on holiday.

But further investigation made it clear he runs the business.

When we contacted him again Kilty confirmed he was the boss but denied his vans were dumped outside people’s homes for years.

‘The vans aren’t left for so long,’ he said. ‘They’re moved.’

Asked why so many people said they were left in the same spots for years, he said: ‘No comment.’

Parked up: One of the red vans that remains parked for months - sometimes years - on end in south London,

Local authorities say that, no matter how disruptive the vans are, they are powerless to get them off the road as they are properly registered, taxed and legally parked.

Kilty is also a thorn in the side of Prince Charles’s favourite party organisers and caterers, The Admirable Crichton, one of several long-suffering companies that share an industrial estate in Camberwell with him.

Kilty owns a rubbish-strewn house at the entrance to the estate which he uses as his self-styled ‘depot’.

Red vans are sometimes parked outside when they need work or when he first buys them and paints them red.

A businessman on the estate said: ‘Johnny Roxburgh has had trouble with him. The red vans stop his lorries from turning into the estate.’

Bill Fancourt, who runs a furniture and timber workshop, said businesses on the estate were forced to take drastic action last year to curb Kilty’s activities.

Kilty's 'depot' at the entrance to the estate where he caused so much obstruction double yellow lines and entrance gates had to be implemented

He said: ‘It’s partly because of his vans that we got double yellow lines and a gate at the entrance to the estate.’

Another trader, who declined to be named, said: ‘He gets vans in and does his work on them. He also leaves rubbish everywhere. He just doesn’t care. It’s a nightmare but he owns the house and has a right to be here.’

Mr Roxburgh and his business partner Rolline Frewen, who have built their company into one of Britain’s top caterers, throwing parties for film premieres and Prince Charles’s polo matches, were on holiday and managing director Sarah McNeill failed to respond to invitations to discuss the vans.

It is not only Kilty’s red vans that are upsetting people.

Leicestershire market town Melton Mowbray is blighted by a horde of old blue vans advertising the Stapleford Self Store Centre.

One is in a car park with a £343 pay-and-display ticket. Taken out on July 1 this year, it entitles the van to remain parked in the bay until June 30, 2009.

Another, outside the offices of the local council, has been there so long that workmen resurfacing the road had to lay the new tarmac around it.

Local councillor Matthew O’Callaghan said: ‘We repeatedly asked them to move these tatty old vans.’

Gary Wilks, boss of the Stapleford Self Store Centre, said: ‘With respect, we wouldn’t wish to comment on this.’