Havering Council is currently replacing all of its Pay and Display machines across the borough and this will be completed by the end of the year.
New machines will no longer accept coins, however people will have the ability to pay contactless with debit and credit cards, or use nearby PayPoint facilities to continue paying with cash.
Residents will still be eligible for the free 30 minutes parking in on-street parking bays, except in Romford. They can activate this by either calling the number displayed on site or using the RingGo app.
The Council has also reviewed the use of machines in less-used locations and where machines are constantly vandalised. The amount of income generated from these machines does not cover the thousands of pounds it costs to cover purchase, maintenance and the running of them and these locations will be pay by phone or Ringo app only – the list of those locations are here – https://www.havering.gov.uk/…/parking_sites_that_will…
People are reminded to always check at the location where they are parking, for further information.
The parking charges in this borough are an absolute disgrace, the high charges are reducing the amount of customers going to shops or visiting friends or relatives. We go into Upminster to do our weekly shop, but when the car park charges were considerably lower, not only did we get our weekly shopping, we would explore and look around the shops etc. having done that, we would often return to Roome stores and have lunch, however, if we were earlier we would have breakfast before going the weekly shop. That is completely out of the question now as the rates are far to high for us, as we are pensioners, not only are they high they now state we cannot stay in the carparks longer then 3 hours. Upminster I am afraid to say like many towns, is dying, as it is being choked to death with high carparking charges, and rate etc. It is no wonder many of our favourite stores have closed down.