Rother council car parks set to go card only

Rother District Council’s cabinet agreed on Monday (October 9) to move ahead with plans to remove the coin payment option from the authority’s pay and display machines in March next year.

Once the change comes into force, car park customers will still be able to pay by card at the machine or use the RingGo service which takes payment online and by phone. These options are already in place and council papers say they are used more frequently than cash payments already.

Customers would still have the option to pay with cash, but would have to use a PayPoint service to do so.

Cabinet member Hazel Timpe (Ind), whose portfolio includes the council’s car parks, said: “My one real concern is people walking from the De La Warr up to the Co-op and I would love for a business, if anyone is listening, along Devonshire Road or nearby to the De La Warr … to come forward as a PayPoint, because not everyone is agile. I think this is going to be difficult for people to accept, but I also understand why we have to do it.”

The move comes as the council’s contract with a firm which collects the coins from the machines is set to expire next year. This contract currently costs the council £30,000 a year, but would be expected to increase in price should it be renewed.

Officers say the change would also help the council reduce its carbon footprint by approximately 5-6 tonnes of CO2 per year, as cash is currently collected from the machines three times a week.

Several councillors raised concerns about the practicalities of the changes. Options discussed included extending automatic permits to blue badge holders, extending the five-minute grace period before penalties are issued and inviting the De La Warr Pavilion to take car park payments.

Concerns were also raised by Labour cabinet members Christine Bayliss and Sam Coleman, who were not present in the room but had joined online. They said they would have considered voting against the proposals had they been present.

Cllr Coleman said: “My portfolio is wellbeing, equalities and age-friendly communities; unfortunately I think this particular report goes into the negative box in all three of those areas.

“If we are to proceed with this it is about risk mitigation. It is about making sure we do the least harm possible when making these savings.”

He added: “As a sufferer of arthritis and as someone who has spent their childhood caring for someone with an auto-immune condition, I know that disabilities can vary day-to-day and someone who might not be in receipt of PIP [Personal Independence Payment] … might find themselves unable to walk to a PayPoint particularly fast, if at all to be honest.

“My concern is with this [current] grace period. If we were to catch somebody out, because they have a mobility issue, or because they’ve been stopped in the street to talk to someone or there was a queue at the Co-op or any of those reasons … I would hate to think that would happen.”

Despite discussions around mitigations, cabinet members ultimately opted to go ahead with the changes as proposed by officers.

While not recommended, officers had put forward two alternative options for cabinet members to consider.

The first would have been to keep things as they are, but officers say this would neither achieve savings nor reduce carbon emissions. The cash collection contract would also need to be renewed, likely costing more than the existing £30,000 figure.

The other alternative would have been to maintain coin payments at the three car parks which account for the majority of cash transactions. These would have been the De La Warr car park in Bexill and the Mount Street and Upper Market car parks in Battle.

Officers said this would not be their preferred option either, as it would still require a new cash collection contract to be signed.

Rother District Council runs 24 pay and display car parks within its borders. Of these, 17 currently have pay and display machines which can take cash payments.