There was a time when "legal tender" was legally acceptable to pay any debt or charge - I don't recall that law being changed.

There are many myths around "legal tender" it doesn't apply to ordinary transactions, only to payments to Courts. WHat's more paper notes are not covered so are not legal tender.

Edited by Hamsafar on 31/01/2015 at 11:09

A basic mobile, kept for emergency use will generally have very little credit - it's frankly easier simply not to go to these places!

I had a nightmare in Dorchester last summer. Went to a car park where all of the ticket machines were out of use. I followed the instructions to pay by phone, this took a long time. I had to text my reg to one number then pay via another number once registered- not easy in bright sunlight without my reading specs.

I then received a text telling me they confirmed my car reg number and location BUT this was not a booking confirmation!

Ignored this and went shopping, to be honest it almost made me want to give up. Surely it can be made more straight forward than this?

I'm very good with a smart phone and computers ext. But when I park the car I like ta take a ticket on entry then when I return put it in a machine witch tells me how much I need to pay and I have a choice of cash or my debit/credit card. My second favourite is a simple pay and display. I don't want to have to use my phone to text or go on the Internet and faff about giving all my details so I can be spammed later on by some 3rd party about something I don't want.

I think a lot of the " put your car reg on the ticket", is to stop people passing any unused time tickets on to anyone else.

All this faff, if you can't manage Bobbin what the heck are old Luddites like me supposed to do.

I have an idea, what about employing someone, sort of job might suit someone semi retired say, put up a kiosk (small shed) at the parking area entrance/exit, person then in worthwhile work can issue parking tickets and collect the monies and be around to keep an eye on things.

You'd think someone would have thought of this already :-) instead of, NHS & local/national govt like, throwing taxpayers money about like confetti on jolly clever schemes that don't work but still cost...though they do possibly provide good careers with kerching pensions for the pen pushers responsible, so thats all right then, nothing to see here move along now.

Hah, so you're the one responsible for this car park fiasco Bromp, another fine mess you got me into Stanley...

There are a couple of car parks in West Sussex that don't give you tickets on entry. They read your VRN on the way in and, when you want to leave, you just enter it in the payment machine, pay for the parking, get in your car and head for the exit. Another camera checks your number plate and raises the barrier. Quite simple, in theory. Unfortunately, living in a town with an older population, there are generally long queues at the payment machines as no one can remember their reg numbers! :)

Or they can't type very well !