Somerset County Council has been criticised after parking machines along Burnham’s seafront have been out of order this week at the same time as charging is introduced for the new tourist season, causing confusion among motorists.
The council’s payment machines are switched on at the start of April every year along The Esplanade, however an electronic fault has meant many have not been working.
Pavilion owner Louise Parkin told Burnham-On-Sea.com: “There’s been a lot of confusion with motorists unable to pay to park, but aware that summer-time restrictions are in force.”
“People are frightened to park the seafront. On one side of the machine it states that you can pay by mobile phone while on the other side there’s a sticker saying the machines are ‘out of order’.”
“The County Council has had the whole winter to get the machines in working order for the start of the season, so there’s no excuse. There were just seven cars parked on the North Esplanade at peak time on Tuesday and 12 on Wednesday.”
A spokesman for Somerset County Council apologised for the problems, adding: “We are aware of technical issues with some of the machines and have an engineer working on getting them resolved as soon as possible.”
