THIS may be an old story, I’m sure that someone has mentioned this in the past, but I am at a loss as to why it is more expensive to park in Hereford using the official car park app RingGo than when paying with cash at the machine.

To give you just one example, while visiting the Courtyard theatre on Saturday evening, I used the RingGo parking app to pay the evening parking fee and was charged £3.80 for the duration.

Having paid the fee, I then by chance looked at the noticeboard by the coin-operated machine to find to my horror that the cost had I paid by cash would have been less at £3.50. We are constantly being encouraged to pay parking fees by app rather than cash and now I know why.

This would seem to be a moneymaking exercise by the car park operator or RingGo at the expense of the consumer.

A 10 per cent administration fee for the privilege of keeping the car park operator’s cost down and increasing their profits?

It is no wonder that Hereford city is no longer the tourist attraction that it once was and in turn part of the reason why the place is starting to look like a ghost town!

Surely it is more cost-effective for the car park operator to collect money via the official app rather than employing people to visit/empty and maintain the coin-operated machines? Yet the car park user is being penalised for doing so.

ANDREW APPS

Hereford