A tip to help you save money on pay & display parking

ElleWoods

This may already be common knowledge, but I was told recently by someone who works for the local council about a way of saving money when parking. If you are parking in a pay and display car park and you are going to be say, longer than 1 hour but less than 2, rather than paying the full amount for the 2 hours you can pay the cost for the first hour then just add coins until the machine reads the time you want.

I tried this the other week in a P&D car park in the city centre and it works! The car park cost £1 for 1 hour, £2 for 2 hours etc. and I knew I was going to be about an hour and a quarter. Normally I'd have put in £2 as I'd rather do that than get a ticket, but I decided to try this out, so I put in £1 then just added 40p and it gave me 1 hour 20 mins, thus saving me 60p. Genius!

Hope this helps someone.

CC x

SUESMITH_2

maybe its changed but here in york they wouldnt let you do that, full amount for next hour or you get a ticket

ElleWoods

Maybe it's different in different places then, but it definitely worked for me in Sheffield. Perhaps it also depends on who runs the car park too? Sorry it doesn't work for you but better to pay than get a ticket!

CC x

Glad

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vikingaero

My local Council car park rates are 60p for 30 mins and then the next band is £1.40 for 3 hours. Even if I have no change and put in a £1 coin then it'll still only give me 30 mins for that £1.

harveybobbles

Oooooooh were lucky here - the first two hours are free and it goes up to £5 for over 4 hours!

Wig

I think it's always going to be worth trying the method to see if it works or not, there's no point assuming it won't work and just throwing 2 x £1 at it. Trying it atleast once for any given car park will be a good idea.