Macclesfield
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Cheshire East 'continuing to review' slow card payments at council-run car parks

Local News by Matthew Hancock-Bruce 5th Oct 2026   1
Cheshire East has responded to complaints about the speed of card payments at council-run car parks (Credit: Nub News)
Cheshire East has responded to complaints about the speed of card payments at council-run car parks (Credit: Nub News)
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Cheshire East Council say they are 'continuing to review' car park payment systems following complaints.

After reading a social media post about the speed of card payments at council-operated car parks, Macclesfield Nub News decided to put it to the test.

At the Commercial Road Car Park, a contactless card payment took two minutes to process, with the ticket printed showing the time the debit card was tapped, rather than when the ticket was printed.

While this may sound trivial to some, if you were only staying for 30 minutes, almost 7% of your parking time would have been wasted stood at the machine.

In response, a spokesperson for Cheshire East Council said: "The time taken to process a card payment at a parking meter can vary depending on factors such as mobile signal strength and network demand at the time of the transaction.

"In many cases payments are processed quickly, but there can occasionally be delays in areas with less reliable coverage or during particularly busy periods.

"The parking session begins when the payment is authorised and details of the parking period are shown on the ticket issued by the machine.

"This is not an issue unique to Cheshire East, and we continue to keep our systems under review.

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"We would like to thank customers for their patience when delays do occur."

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Fraser.macfadyen

You parked BEFORE you bought the ticket, and the car is already occupying a space, so the time it takes actually to get the ticket is irrelevant. You have already had, free, the time it takes to walk to the machine and pay by card.


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