Short-changed by parking machines

A couple of weekends ago I decided that I wanted to park for one and a half hours to do my shopping. Bearing in mind the new linear system of charging, ie. 10p per six minutes parking, I worked out that I needed to put in £1.50 for this amount of time. (In fact this amount is given as an example on the council’s website guide to the new parking charges).

I duly put in my £1.50 at 15.59 and received a ticket that stated my return time as 16.59. It also recorded my arrival time correctly, and the fact that I had paid £1.50.

It doesn’t take an accountant to work out that if everyone is being short-changed on the amount of time they can park for the amount of money they are putting in the machine, Warwick District Council are onto a nice little earner.

I know that times are hard, and the council needs to raise money where it can, but I feel this is a bit of an underhand way of doing it. - Name and address supplied.