Glitches keep parking free
The Whangarei District Council's plans to start charging people to park at the Town Basin carparks have been put off for at least a week after embarrassing teething problems with the parking machines.
Pay and Display ticket machines have been installed at the Town Basin's three carparks and a $2 a day charge - to replace free parking in the carparks - was to have started on Monday.
However, the council's senior roading engineer, Greg Monteith, said embarrassing teething issues with the machines meant the new charging regime was on hold at least until Monday.
The problems included tickets not printing, credit cards not being accepted and machines turning off.
Mr Monteith said the council's parking contractors, Environmental Northland, had been told not to enforce the parking rules at the carparks until the machines were working properly.
"We are working through why [the machines] keep breaking," Mr Monteith said.
It was possible that the tickets were being pulled out before they had finished printing and that might then mess the system up.
"Some of [the machines] have had issues from the outset and we have had to get new parts for them ... there seems to be a recurring problem with the tickets, though."
Mr Monteith said any costs associated with repairing the machines would be borne by the company that supplied them, not ratepayers.
"It's a bit embarrassing. While we appreciate people's frustration, it's not a good look and we will get it resolved as quickly as we can," he said.
The council had initially said Town Basin parkers could also buy week-long parking tickets so they did not have to get a new one every day.
However, the machines' manufacturer has said this could not be done and people would have to buy a ticket on a daily basis.
Charging at the Town Basin is part of the council's new central city parking strategy.
The changes include increasing parking time limits in the central city to three hours, introducing a weekday daily charge of $2 at the Town Basin's three commuter car parks and removing time restrictions at all pay and display carparks.
