A FRUSTRATED tourist received a fine despite trying to pay for parking using various methods.

Gareth Williams, of Shropshire, spent over 20 minutes trying to pay for parking in Worcester as he was taking a friend around the city.

He parked at Newport Street Car Park, owned and operated by Worcester City Council, and found a PCN on his car after returning 19 minutes late.

Mr Williams said: "We wanted to stay for four hours, however, neither of the machines in the car park were accepting credit or debit cards and another was not functioning at all.

"We, therefore, proceeded to try to pay with cash in the one machine that was working, but it kept repeatedly rejecting one of the four pound coins which we had.

"We were away for a little over three hours but less than the four hours we had wished to pay for and returned to the vehicle at 2.40pm to find the PCN had been issued at 2.32pm."

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Mr Williams believes Worcester City Council is at fault for failing to maintain the payment machines.

He said: "Worcester City Council made it impossible to pay for the parking duration we wished to pay for and I would willingly go to the magistrates' court to argue that its failure to maintain the parking machines amounts to a deliberate attempt to entrap motorists into paying a fine.

"I realise that for those with a smartphone, it is possible to download the app, but I do not think it is or should be a requirement in order to park in a publicly run car park.

"You should not have to have a smartphone, download an app and have to pay for data roaming in order to do so."

Mr Williams said he attempted to call RingGo but was greeted with a message saying it was 'not possible to pay for parking on this number'.

Worcester City Council said all of the payment systems were working on the day.

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A spokesperson said: “The council’s payment machines have sophisticated systems installed to prevent fake or counterfeit coins being used for payment.

“Card payments have not been accepted in any Worcester City Council car parks since September, although this facility will be reintroduced when new payment machines are installed in the coming weeks.

“Customers do not need to have the smartphone app to pay for parking with the RingGo service.

"A local rate phone number for the service is displayed on all our payment machines, and customers can call it to make a payment on any type of mobile phone.

“Any customer who receives a penalty charge notice in our car parks has the right to appeal against it. Details are provided on the notice and at www.worcester.gov.uk/parking.”