New solar powered parking machines planned for Salisbury

This announcement comes after many residents and visitors were met with broken machines when trying to park in the city centre.

Read more: Broken Salisbury parking machines and MiPermit cause uproar

When asked why so many machines are out of service and not accepting cash in Salisbury, Cllr Mark McClelland, cabinet member for transport, said: "This is often due to coin jams, vandalism, power problems and other issues."

Signs have been posted on the Wiltshire Council-owned parking machines (Image: Public)

Wiltshire Council have apologised for any inconvenienced caused by the unavailable machines.

Cllr McClelland added: “We are committed to having payment machines in our car parks, and we are currently working to replace 100 machines throughout the county.

“We’re investing £400,000 over the next three years in these new machines that will enable users of our car parks to pay with a wide choice of payments."

Residents will be pleased to know that the new machines will still accept cash, but also contactless cards as well as mobile wallet payments such as Google Pay and Apple pay.

MiPermit will still be available in council-owned car parks to allow people to pay using their smartphone to "easily extend their stays" from any location.

To avoid outages in the future, new machines will be designed to help prevent coin jams and power supply issues will be limited because they'll be solar powered.

“In the meantime, we’re repairing any machines that are currently not working in Salisbury and elsewhere so that people can use cash payments," added Cllr McClelland.

Salisbury City Councillor Annie Riddle, of Harnham West, said the new machines and repairs "can't happen too soon", adding: "The City Hall is beginning its autumn vaccination programme for the over-75s, many of whom come into town by car. People for whom paying cash for a ticket would be easy and familiar.

“Someone involved in the vaccination programme has told me how this week they watched a distressed elderly couple wandering from one broken machine to another, trying to pay, not understanding what a QR code was, and worrying about getting a penalty ticket.

“The man was telling his wife that perhaps they should return home and forget about having lunch out."

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