Cashless parking only as charging resumes in North Devon Council car parks

With many shops set to re-open this month, North Devon Council is set to reintroduce town centre car parking charges from June 15.

Due to the risk of COVID-19 transmission, ticket machines will not accept coins, so the council has introduced measures to make cashless easier and fairer.

The additional 20 pence charge has been removed from RingGo, the council’s online car parking payment system, and the minimum 3 hour stay for contactless payments has also been removed. Meaning that if you pay by any cashless method, you will pay exactly the same amount as the tariff on the board.

Leader of North Devon Council, Councillor David Worden, says “As lockdown restrictions begin to lift, and life in North Devon resumes some kind of normality it is time to re-introduce parking charges once again. I know they are a highly contentious subject and many people object to them, but it is clear that free parking in short stay car parks would attract many workers to park there all day, leaving fewer spaces for shoppers.

Resuming these charges will ensure that short stay car park spaces are available for shoppers to help the town centre shops get good trade. While people who work in the town centre can revert back to using long stay car parks.

We want to make paying for parking as safe as possible for everyone, so have scrapped any restrictions on paying by card or online so the price you pay per hour is exactly the same as it would be if you were paying by cash.”

The advantages of using RingGo are:
• you don't have to touch the machines at all
• you can top up your parking without returning to the vehicle
• if you're worried about mobile reception, you can book it from home in advance
• you can pay over the phone, on the smartphone app, on your computer or tablet or using the 'text me' service

RingGo can also text you SMS reminders for when your parking session is due to expire, but there is still an extra charge for this optional service.

When using RingGo – please double check you have entered the correct car registration number and car park code into the app before committing to pay for the parking session.