The idea is being looked at by Scarborough Council which is also upgrading the pay and display machines that do not give out change when buying a ticket.

Bruce Bedford, the council's technical services manager, denied claims the local authority was "cheating" motorists by operating pay and display machines that do not give change.

He said the older machines were manufactured in such a way they were unable to do so.

However, some newer machines did and it was the council's intention to upgrade older ones throughout the borough.

Mr Bedford's comments followed a debate in the House of Lords where it was claimed that the machines were a rip-off and that the issue should be investigated by the Office of Fair Trading.

Mr Bedford said: "It is down to how the machines are manufactured. The industry standard pay and display machines for use on public streets do not offer change to users.

"The cash collected in them is held securely inside the machine and it is not possible to retain what would have to be large floats of change in order to give that in return for over-payment."

The council collects £4.533 million in parking fees and fines each year.

Mr Bedford added: "The more modern machines are capable of being programmed to calculate the actual parking time paid for and they can also adjust the tickets to allow extra time. Many of the newer machines in Scarborough can do this and we have programmed them accordingly.

"Our intention is to upgrade all the machines to provide this level of service and at the same time offer credit card payment as an alternative.

"Another initiaitive we are progressing is payment for parking using mobile phone. The user would be registered and would then simply text a number to obtain parking credits and the parking attendants are automatically informed that the person has paid."

What do you think? You can leave your comments below.

Emailed Comment: Paul Knight, INDIANA, USA

I think that it would be a good idea to accept credit card payments for parking, why not go a further step and allow automated payments via ones cell phone (you call the number displayed on the machine, when prompted enter you license plate number and credit card details.
The parking attendants portable device would then confirm remote payment, or the payee could just ignore the parking ticket.)

I recently returned to Scarborough for a vacation and tried to stop over at Robin Hood's Bay but couldn't due to insufficient change for the meters. (How many foreign visitor would stock up on coins for their holidays? Most would have only travelers checks or just pay by plastic.), I walked a little way down the hill to the cafe / gift store to see if they would change a £10 note, and was told no, but if I was to buy something they would. My wife would have most certainly have bought something in that store as a memento of our visit, BUT only when we were legally parked. As the store would not help us facilitate parking legally, when returned to our hotel.

So yes, I would pay by credit card if that was available.