Parking payments

NEARLY one ­ in ­ five UK drivers (19 per cent) say their local authority has either scrapped parking payment machines or is consulting on doing so, forcing them to use mobile phones to pay instead, new RAC research reveals.

The survey of 1,900 UK drivers found that one­in10 (11 per cent) reported some or all parking payment machines had already been removed by their local councils with an extra 8 per cent saying their local authority was consulting on doing so.

Drivers in London were most likely to say payment machines had already gone or were due to be going (44 per cent of respondents in the capital), followed by those in the east of England (23 per cent) and East Midlands (22 per cent).

The RAC’s findings are being driven by the fact that many councils are getting rid of machines for taking payment for parking as a result of many older machines relying on 3G mobile phone signals to function, which telecoms operators are switching off.

TICKET MACHINES: Are gradually being phased out.

This means councils either have to spend large sums on replacing machines with more modern ones or get rid of machines altogether, in turn making drivers use a mobile phone to pay for parking.

262 miles Tesla on a single charge.