WEST Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger is asking Somerset Council for a ‘clear commitment’ to keeping cash payment machines in its car parks.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said it was essential to keep the facility to help elderly people and others who may not be able to ‘pay by phone’. 

He stepped in after Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove wrote to all local authorities to remind them cash was still legal tender and that changing to only accept payment by phone app would leave many people ‘digitally excluded’.

Mr Liddell-Grainger was also aware of an increasing number of complaints about higher costs involved in paying by phone with those using the service frequently hit by swingeing ‘processing charges’.

He said the new unitary authority now had the power to impose a common charging policy across the entire county, whereas previously the four district administrations each had differing arrangements.

Mr Liddell-Grainger said: “It may be far more convenient for the council to move all parking charges to phone apps because it then will not have the responsibility for emptying machines and handling cash receipts.

“But local government must not be run for the convenience of the councils, it should be run in the best interests of the council taxpayers and, as Michael Gove has pointed out, it is manifestly unfair to discriminate against the many people who may not have access to phone apps - or who, indeed, wish to keep using cash because it is cheaper.

“I look forward to the council assuring me that arrangements for cash payments are being maintained and that they will be reinstated in any car parks which may already have been switched to phone payments only.”