Unsuccessful attempts by motorists to buy a ticket for a car park space in Enniskillen when a ticketing machine would not accept coins, may have occurred on Easter Tuesday, an extra non-charging day designated by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council this year.

After complaints were received by The Impartial Reporter about ticketing machines not working, we set out to find out why.

Now it seems, one of the reasons may have been because all the car park machines in Enniskillen were set not to accept any coins on Easter Tuesday. No Penalty Charge Notices were issued in Enniskillen car parks on Easter Tuesday as a result.

Fermanagh and Omagh Council took over the responsibility of off-street car parking from April 1 and as a result, are responsible for setting the tariffs, the upkeep and lighting of the car parks.

However as a result of a contract between the Department for Regional Development and NSL, the service provider, until 2016, the maintenance of the ticketing machines, will continue to be operated by them.

In a statement to The Impartial Reporter, a spokesperson for the DRD stated: “A full check of all car park ticket machines in Enniskillen was carried out by the service provider this morning (April 15 2015) and reported that all machines are operating normally. If a ticket machine develops a problem then an automatic notification is sent to a backroom system which in turn notifies an engineer who will attend the machine to make good any repairs needed within 24 hours.

“It must be noted that Fermanagh and Omagh Council have added non-charging days to the existing list and Easter Tuesday was included this year therefore the ticket machines would have been set not to accept any coins. It is also worth noting that no PCNs were issued in Enniskillen car parks this Easter Tuesday.” The DRD gave the following advice to motorists: “If anyone encounters a problem with a pay and display parking ticket dispensing machine and there is no opportunity to use an alternative machine, there is a contact number on the machine which should be used to report the fault whereupon drivers will be immediately advised further. This call also triggers urgent action to ensure all efforts are made to rectify the situation. We would further advise that all machines advertise the availability of using the cashless parking process which does not require having to put coins into any Pay and Display ticket dispensing machine.

“In any instance where the recipient of a PCN appeals claiming that the machine was faulty, TransportNI will investigate the situation with their parking enforcement contractor and request the fault report history and maintenance and inspection history for the machine. TransportNI will also request the ticket transaction report from the machine which will show if the machine was working.” The telephone cashless parking system, Parkmobile, can be used by parking your car in a space, and phoning 028 9575 7988 to avoid your parking time expiring.

The DRD said: “More people are signing up to the Parkmobile service which costs an extra 15p each time you park. Details are on the side of parking machines.