UPDATED Bridgefoot car park in Stratford reopens

BRIDGEFOOT car park in Stratford-upon-Avon reopened this morning, Wednesday, after teething problems with its new operating system.

Visitors had faced chaos and confusion over the weekend with customers forced to queue for 20 minutes or more to pay for their parking.

A new automatic number plate recognition system failed to work on Sunday forcing the closure of Bridgefoot car park on Monday and Tuesday. The car park is run by Stratford District Council.

Unlike pay and display, number plate recognition records a driver’s number plate on entry to a car park. The driver is then charged on departure for the length of stay once they have registered their number plate.

A district council spokesperson said: “The car park was opened on Saturday once the contractors installing the system had completed their testing of the installation.

"When the car park was opened to the public for ‘actual use’ this revealed some further issues that need to be resolved.

"The main issues related to traffic management in the entrance and exit lanes, the way the pay stations operated, signage and information for the users of the new system.

"To allow these issues to be resolved we took the decision to close the car park and have now made a number of adjustments to address the issues that were encountered."