A pay and display ticket is the thing that comes out of the pay and display machine. As Spartacus rightly says, everyone knows what that is. A parking ticket is what people think you receive on your windscreen when receiving a fine on or off private land. I believe a renaming would cause confusion. i.e. If you don't get a parking ticket, you'll get a parking ticket etc etc etc. Also, for the sake of accuracy, we are not "Parking Tax collection officers". We do not collect any money ourselves, we issue a PCN when we believe a contravention has occured on the public highway, in the interests of road safety and fairness for all. It is for the council parking services to decide whether the contravention stands and whether a penalty is payable.

So, if we come a cross a vehicle without clearly displaying a pay and display ticket, we would check to see if the vehicle is covered by mobile phone payment. If it isn't then we observe the vehicle for 5 minutes to make sure the driver hasn't gone off to get change. After the 5 minutes is up, we check the pay by phone system one last time and if the driver still hasn't paid, then a PCN can be issued. To clarify, 5 minutes observation is all that is required for no display in the West Berkshire Council area. *(It could very well be different for other local authorities.)

Expired pay and display tickets have a 10 minute grace period; so if we come across a vehicle with a pay and display ticket which has expired, we allow 10 minutes over the printed time. Example. If we saw a car at 12:30 with a ticket that expired at 12:00 we would issue a PCN straight away as the 10 minute grace period has already been observed. If we saw a vehicle at 14:30 with a ticket that expired at 14:32, we wouldn't be able to issue a PCN until 14:42 at the earliest. I think that this is a national standard for on street parking and council controlled pay and display car parks. Private car parks can do what they like.

You obviously won't have anything to display when you park and pay via the mobile phone payment system. This is explained in WBC parking policy, and also the pay by phone terms and conditions, which you agree to before paying and commencing your parking period. Our hand-held computers link into the system so we can see who has paid.

So you may park in Cheap Street and Bartholomew (in theory) for 40 minutes without paying, but not without displaying. I say in theory because the maximum free period is officially 30 minutes, with a grace period. Be fair to everyone else, we have to share our public highway!

I'd rather have a friendly green meanie to talk to than big brother watching my every move.

The private ANPR enforcement of car parks is hardly perfect, and causes misery for hundreds of people everyday. Not a clever solution.

It is not whether people know what a 'pay and display ticket' is, but whether they know they need one when parking on the road for 30 minutes or less. I know for a fact there are people who don't know they are meant to get tickets when parking for a short period.


The reason for my flippant reference was simply that I believe the principle reason parking charges and fines were introduced (as is also the case with some instances of speeding) was to raise revenue.

The proposal to increase parking charges as part of the WBC response to their losing £11M ofcentral government funding does indeed suggest that parking chargesare seen as an income stream

Actually, Andy Capp, I was one of them! On the basis of that's how it works elsewhere I've been.

I do know about the not needing a ticket with the phone pay ones though. Got caught at Newbury Station which cost me! Entirely my fault, ran for train, about to 'log in and pay' and the phone went, took the call and forgot.....'till I got back. Bang to rights they call it!

Well it looks like Basingstoke has the right idea. I quote from the 'Basingstoke & Deane Today Paper'
:- 'To help support a thriving town centre, the half hour free parking in short stay council run car parks in Basingstoke is planned to increase to an hour. The move follows feedback that the half hour parking the council introduced was to much of a rush for people wanting to just nip into town to sort something out or make a quick purchase'.
Now, doesn't that make sense !!

It sounds to me, like a council initiative from someone who actually gives a **** about their town. Well done Basingstoke!

It's quite a walk from their car parks. The extra half hour is needed just to get to the shops and back.

Yes let's compare Basingstoke with Newbury..... As Hatter says, the free half hour is pretty much used up just to get to the shops and back. What sort of "just nipping into town to sort something out or make a quick purchase" requires a whole hour in Newbury?

I have to say, I rarely pay to park in Newbury these days if I want to be quick. Since the free half hour, it's been reasonably easy to find somewhere close to the centre. Mind, I don't actually resent paying a pound for an hour in Parkway just so my better half can fill the boot without walking too far. Dare I say it's rather nice being able to wander around a good few shops in the car free centre whilst breathing real air and without the canned music.

The thing I don't like is that the necessity to take a ticket for half an hour's free parking is just a cynical and sly means of taxing the unwary. Just plain nasty.

I'm not entirely convinced about that. Arguably, the only contention about having to take a ticket is the apparent lack of a plain clear notice explaining?

Don't the yellow signs say something like "Display ticket for free 30 minutes parking"? Perhaps it could be better worded but I'm not sure whether the sign then starts to become too 'wordy'.

Sorry, my post failed to state that not clearly informing of the need to take a ticket is the cynical bit.
I can't think of any reason not to have a plain clear notice explaining other than in the hope of catching the unwary?

It is a odd, but it is probably more likely to be there to make 'policing' the parking time easier for the 'meanies', otherwise they have to be there and time you, and the others.

Yes, I'd go with that, I was 'caught' a couple of times before I realised!

It is most likely to make traffic management easier (a record of when you took a ticket). I doubt it is entrapment.

Without a means to show what time you turned up and started your 30 minute free parking period how can the Enforcement Officers reasonably hope to enforce? They can't be expected to be there and patrol continually on a single street to record every single car that turns up and parks on that street.

Mind, they always used to; before the march of technology, but we had to employ rather more back then. I'd agree it isn't exactly entrapment, if the signage is indistinct or unclear, it could just be poor implementation which might be caused by a lack of customer focus. Its a shame really, it could have been a highlight,

In fact that is exactly what we used to do before the pay and display machines, but rather than standing in one road all the time, we would patrol each road every 15/20 minutes and take a snapshot of cars parked. Our patrol areas cover lots of roads and timed bays so we can't be everywhere at the same time. A better way? You decide.