A majority of pay and display machines in Reading are set to go cashless as parking charges are due to increase across the town.
Reading Borough Council is pursuing changes to parking in the town that will increase fares for more polluting cars and make payments more convenient.
The change involves replacing pay and display machines throughout the borough as the machines are dated and are increasingly costly to maintain.
A report by Phil Grant, the council’s parking services manager states that the current system has a total cost of £44,000 per year, with the changes saving £35,000 per year.
In a more sweeping change, more than half of the pay and display machines will be removed altogether, with the amount going down from 168 to around 75.
Those that will be replaced will kept based on data for the most used areas and future requirements.
Approximately a third -around 20- retained machines will accept cash, as the data demonstrates that there is a high demand at sites, such as around the hospital.
Examples of individual machines that will not be kept include two machines in Wokingham Road, East Reading, which only generated £9 and £5 respectively from October 2023 to October 2024.
Changes to the pay and display machines will be implemented alongside increased parking fares, with charges for petrol and diesel cars increasing by at least 20 per cent.
The policy to modernise and replace the pay and display machines to facilitate this change was discussed during a council policy committee meeting.
Opposition councillors argued fare increases will disproportionally affect drivers of older vehicles, with cllr Rob White the leader of the opposition, suggesting the changes should be delayed by a year to allow drivers to get rid of their more polluting cars.
John Ennis, lead councillor for climate strategy and transport, took aim at cllr White (Green, Park), referring to a Green Party member who spoke during a recent episode of BBC’s Question Time.
Cllr Ennis (Labour, Southcote) said: “I was thinking, we’re short-changed in Reading, we don’t have these proper Green people, that really want to say ‘no let’s bring back the stagecoach, let’s bring back the horses, let’s get rid of all the cars’ that I heard them speaking.
“I thought that’s really, good, [but] it’s not achievable. Either you [cllr White] are realistic and you’re tuned or you are chasing the Reform vote, I’m not sure.”
Cllr White had argued that drivers should be given more time to switch to lower emission cars, as the changes are due to be implemented this April.
Cllr Ennis conceded: “You make fair comments, and I think they are going to be taken on board.”
He also argued that people do not have to drive to do shopping, with the measures aimed at encouraging walking and public transport and air quality.
Ultimately, the policy committee unanimously agreed to begin a six-week consultation into the changes at the meeting on Monday, January 20.
As well as that, the consultation will also cover emissions-based charging for all forms of parking permits.
