New hi-tech ticket machines to spring up at Dales carparks

New ticket machines are coming to Dales car parks after testing in Ashbourne - pictured are Helen Spencer and Helen Carrington testing machines.

But as the new machines arrive over the coming weeks and months, the council says it is important to remember that they will still only accept cash in the short term, until new card payment functions are fully tested.

Derbyshire Dales District Council said this will happen towards the end of the year and a next step – enabling payments via mobile phone – will follow in April 2016.

And residents can continue to use parking permits to park free in any District Council car park before 11am and after 4pm every day.

Installation will start at Matlock car parks next week, then in Bakewell in September and then going to other towns around the district, and disruption will be kept to a minimum with temporary payment machines in place.

The new machines follow a trial at an Ashbourne car park, where users favoured this type over a similar hi-tech machine.

A District Council spokesperson said: “One of the big ideas that came out of a year-long review of our car parking policies was that the pay and display machines in our car parks should be able to receive card payments as well as cash.

“This is our response to that feedback and while we are concentrating initially on our bigger town centre car parks, the aim is to have new machines installed in all of our 40 car parks across the Derbyshire Dales before the end March next year.”