A Macclesfield businessman says town centre shops have lost trade as people fear they will be fined for not paying to park because Cheshire East's meters aren't accepting card payments.

Cheshire East issued a statement this morning (March 14) to say some of its pay and display machines in towns across the borough were not accepting card payments 'because of a third-party issue which is out of the council's control'.

It is understood the problem, which began earlier this week, may also be affecting some other areas of the country.

Richard Slater, owner of Henbury Travel on Chestergate, said: "We've had the quietest week for the past two years.

"Footfall in the town centre has flatlined this week. People don't know whether they can park."

Richard Slater of Henbury Travel (Credit: LDRS)

The statement issued by Cheshire East on Facebook said: "Supplier engineers need to attend all the affected pay and display machines to carry out a manual reset.

"This began yesterday and will also be taking place today.

"Crewe and Nantwich machines are now back online.

"We apologise for any inconvenience caused and are working with suppliers to get this resolved as soon as possible.

"In the meantime, payments can still be made via RingGo, or by cash at some car parks."

The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted the council to ask if people who can't pay will be fined if they park.

It was pointed out there are very few parking machines which take cash following Cheshire East's decision to go cashless and that some people may not have smartphones and so can't pay by app.

Councillor Mark Goldsmith, chair of Cheshire East Council's highways and transport committee, said: "We are aware that there has been an issue with some of our car parks not accepting card payments. 

"The operator who supplies this service has had to manually reset all the machines that have been impacted and has been continuing that work this afternoon. 

"They are working quickly to resolve this issue, and we expect that all our pay and display machines will be fully operational again today.

"Due to this outage, our civil enforcement officers were reallocated to on-street work, such as enforcing yellow lines and ensuring disabled spaces were available. As our machines are now coming back online, they may now be redeployed to car parks. 

"Machines in car parks in Crewe and Nantwich are already back online, and we would like to remind the public that payments for parking are still accepted via RingGo and in cash.

"We apologise for any inconvenience this disruption has caused."