ALONGSIDE the introduction of electric vehicle charging points, Torridge District Council have also installed new IPS pay and display machines in Holsworthy’s Manor Car Park.

The machines now feature more user friendly interfaces, reduced processing times and in nine of the main car parks the ability to make card or contactless payments.

The planned upgrade of the machines, which have been carried out across a number of Torridge’s car parks, has resulted in reduced installation costs and reduced annual maintenance fees totalling around £53,000 in the first year of operation. The savings over a five year period will be around £100,000.

The system also allows for real time monitoring of the machines allowing the council to provide a more reactive customer service and response to maintenance issues as they arise. The integrated Data Management System (DMS) also means that when new coinage is introduced or tariffs change these can now be managed in-house rather than at additional cost. The usage data can also be manipulated via the DMS dashboard to provide more meaningful statistics to assist planning and operations.

So far the new card payment machines have been installed at: The Pill Car Park, Riverbank Car Park, The Quay Car Park and Bridge Street in Bideford; Main Car Park and Slipway Car Park in Westward Ho!; Churchfields Car Park in Appledore; Manor Car Park in Holsworthy; Sydney House Car Park in Torrington.

Cllr Bob Hicks, lead member for the economy, said: “The £100,000 savings the council will make in the coming years is obviously an attractive reason for installing these new machines when we considered our replacement options. It will allow us to redeploy this money into other projects at a time when every penny counts.

“Key benefits for our customers such as card and contactless payments are also a major feature we were keen to introduce and we hope that people will like and make good use of the new options these machines provide.”