Pay-By-Phone Parking Extended

Parking in Bournemouth town centre is about to get easier as the Council prepares to extend its pay-by-phone service to more on-street spaces.

Traders have welcomed plans to implement RingGo in 12 streets as well as the car park in Westover Gardens. The service, which enables motorists to pay by mobile phone call, text, on-line or by iPhone and Android phone application, will be implemented from Monday, 4 July. The traditional method of cash-payment will also continue.

Councillor Michael Filer, Cabinet Member for Transport and Technical Services, said:

"The implementation of RingGo in our town centre car parks five years ago was a great success and public demand to extend it to on-street spaces has been high. The move is being funded by RingGo and, as well as being a great deal more convenient to motorists, it reduces the Council's cost of collecting cash from pay-and-display machines."

In 2006 Bournemouth became one of the first UK councils to implement cashless parking at all town centre pay and display car parks and the service has grown in popularity, with thousands of new users still signing up each month.

Nigel Hedges, President of Bournemouth Chamber of Trade and Commerce, welcomed the news. He added:

"We support the growing availability of the RingGo system for parking in Bournemouth. Our members say the ease and convenience for them and their customers encourages them to stay longer in the town centre and relieves them of the worries about 'overstaying penalties'."