Independent councillors are calling on Brighton and Hove City Council to look into setting up a paper-based parking voucher scheme.
Rottingdean and West Saltdean councillor Mark Earthey is putting a motion to the council next week after raising concerns about the scrapping of physical parking meters in the city.
The Brighton and Hove Independent councillor plans to ask fellow councillors to recognise that not everyone is able or willing to use a smartphone app or pay by phone.
He wants the council to note that many areas with on-street paid parking are more than a five-minute walk from a PayPoint outlet, such as Kingsway on Hove seafront.
And he wants the council to ask for a report on how a paper parking voucher scheme could be brought in, with vouchers available online, from shops and council offices.
Councillor Earthey, who is being supported by fellow Brighton and Hove Independent councillor Bridget Fishleigh, said:
“Our motion is in response to numerous complaints from residents and visitors in many areas of the city about the difficulties with pay by phone. It is not just our ward experiencing problems.
“Pay by phone is clearly not working for all users, not just those who find smartphones challenging.
“The PayPoint alternative appears to have become completely bogged down in bureaucracy and intransigence despite an enthusiastic response by a number of retailers to operate the scheme.
“We need to return to a proven system such as scratch cards which are already in use for visitor parking. It’s not rocket science to widen the scope of the existing system.”
Councillors have called for alternative ways to pay for on-street parking since the council stopped using cash and card parking machines earlier this year. The council is currently removing all the old parking machines.
At the council’s Transport and Sustainability Committee meeting on Tuesday, October 3, Councillor Fishleigh spoke about the lack of PayPoint outlets in Rottingdean, leaving people at risk of parking tickets because the village had a poor mobile phone signal.
A growing number of residents and visitors have spoken publicly about their problems paying for parking since the council stopped using machines.
Some have said that they ended up parking without paying and risked a ticket. With parking charge rises, the difference between the cost of parking and cost of a ticket has narrowed.
The meeting of the full council is due to meet at Hove Town Hall at 4.30pm on Thursday, October 19. The meeting is scheduled to be webcast on the council’s website.
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