FAULTY city council car park ticket machines are causing confusion for drivers.

Payment delays mean people will see recent transactions for car park stays which took place weeks or even months ago.

Elavon, which operates the merchant banking software used in the city council’s car park machines, said a system error was to blame for the delay.

Payments could now show on bank statements for parking stays made between June and Friday, September 10.

Worcester City Council apologised saying: "We take this matter extremely seriously and are working hard to ensure that it does not reoccur."

Nigel Brooks thought the out of order machines in Copenhagen Street car park had taken several payments from him without him producing his card.

He had used the car park on Monday morning and gone to use two machines which were both out of order.

After using the RingGo app he immediately checked his bank balance to make sure it had gone through and found several transactions.

As well as a charge from RingGo there were four debit card payments for Copenhagen Street car park - three at £2.40 and one at £1.20.

After thinking the card had been scanned through his pocket, Mr Brooks contacted his bank.

It turned out to just be a coincidence that the past payments were processed as he stood in the car park.

"I got my bank to trace the charges back and the transactions did originate in June.

"It was just a major coincidence they hit my account just as I was standing in the carpark on Monday."

A spokeswoman for Worcester City Council said: "Elavon, the company which operates the merchant banking software used in the city council’s car park machines, has recently informed us that a system error has resulted in delays to the processing of some card payments.

"This means that payment transactions may now be showing up on some customers’ bank statements for parking stays made between June and 10 September 2021.

"According to Elavon, it is unlikely that this error has resulted in people being charged multiple times for the same stay.

"However, if customers have evidence that this has occurred, please email us at parkingoffice@worcester.gov.uk and we will investigate.

"We’d like to apologise to all customers who may have been affected by this issue.

"We take this matter extremely seriously and are working hard to ensure that it does not reoccur."