A SAXON Fields resident has said he will ‘probably’ stop using a car park payment machine after being charged more than 10 times the amount for a 30-minute shop.

Tony van der Spiegel parked his car at the Chantry Centre car park so he could shop in Waitrose on Friday, August 12.

The grandfather said a fault with the car park’s payment machines left him £6.40 out of pocket after a half-hour shop.

Mr van der Spiegel said that he parked his car as usual at the car park and checked in using the Post Payment System machine.

The machine allows drivers to pay for parking using a debit or credit card.

When he returned to his car about 25 minutes later he found that both the card payment machines displayed ‘Out of Order’ notices.

It left Mr van der Spiegel with no way to check out of the car park.

With no Test Valley staff around, he decided to pay cash by buying a parking ticket for the half hour he had been there for 50p.

Mr van der Spiegel, a retired police officer, said: “I had a feeling I would be charged because of the way the machines work.

“So I checked my bank statement and sure enough there it was.”

As he anticipated, Mr van der Spiegel had been charged the day’s rate for parking £5.90.

The 70-year-old added: “There was nothing I could do about it. No way I could stop them.”

He has now gone to Test Valley Borough Council for a refund and questioned the car parking system at the Chantry Centre.

Mr van der Spiegel said: “I think they should know if their system that checks in that day and can’t check out.

“They need some system to allow for that.

“I don’t believe I’m the only one for a moment, they’re quite busy really.”

He said he “probably” would not use the card machine any more.

TVBC planning policy and transport portfolio holder, councillor Martin Hatley, said: “We regret that there was a fault with the car parking payment system in the Chantry Centre for a short period on Friday morning.

“The fault arose due to a technical issue in the external banking system which was outside of the council’s control.

“On the rare occasion that the card payment machines are not working, we manually check-out any vehicles so that the system stops charging anyone who has paid by credit or debit card at that point.

“Unfortunately, Mr Van Der Spiegel’s vehicle was missed from this process on Friday. We will issue a refund to Mr Van Der Spiegel and anyone else who was over-charged as a result of the fault.”