News Make parking easier this Christmas in Maidstone
Maidstone Borough Council (MBC) is reminding anyone planning to come in to town for Christmas shopping to look at the best places to park their car and to be aware of changes to parking machines.
There are 20 car parks and 12 on-street parking areas throughout Maidstone. Most MBC pay and display machines have now been replaced with ticketless machines which have the latest ticketless technology. This means there is no longer a need to print a ticket or for the driver to return to the vehicle and place it in the windscreen to confirm a transaction.
Instead, drivers enter their vehicle registration number, make their payment, which is still possible using cash or by touching the payment pad with a debit card or through the cashless RingGo app. The pay machine communicates this transaction directly to the enforcement officers and can provide a receipt of payment for the customer if they would like one.
All MBC car parks also have the facility to pay for parking via the RingGo smartphone app or by phone, which:
- Speeds up the payment process
- Removes the chance of ‘face down’ parking tickets leading to penalty charges
- Allows drivers extend their stay when away from the vehicle
In addition, MBC is committed to facilitating a carbon neutral future and have rolled out its’ first phase of Electric Vehicle (EV) charging units to enable residents and visitors to have access to charging in core town locations. There are currently 18 Pod Point Charging bays found in various locations in the town centre car parks.
Jeff Kitson, Parking Services Manager at Maidstone Borough Council said:
“The new parking systems are already helping drivers to park in and around Maidstone. Customers now have three different ways of paying for parking as the new machines compliment the RingGo cashless payment option already used in our car parks.“The ticketless machines use a wireless technology which allows communication between devices. Allowing our enforcement officers hand held devices to communicate with the pay machine, so each transaction will show up on the system very soon after payment.
“The introduction of these systems also goes towards helping MBC meet its’ climate change target of making the borough carbon neutral, as all machines use solar power with electrical back up. All of our car parks are placed in ideal town centre locations and provide excellent value for money.”
To find out more about parking in Maidstone go to the Council website: www.maidstone.gov.uk