Taunton: Car park barriers that malfunctioned 100,000 times removed

Barriers at six car parks in Taunton are being removed after they became too expensive for the council to maintain.

People had to be physically freed 100,000 times in 2022 when the barriers refused to lift, sometimes leaving drivers trapped for several hours.

Pay-as-you-leave parking systems were installed in January 2019 by Taunton Deane Borough Council.

A council spokesperson said: "The rise in income from actually letting people pay for parking will fund the work."

The barriers at Canon Street, Castle Street, Enfield, Orchard, Tangier and Wood Street were "operational" for four-and-a-half-years but now the car parks will return to pay-and-display machines.

The spokesperson for Somerset Council, which is overseeing the barriers' removal, said: "The barrier system has been unreliable and expensive to maintain. The cost of maintenance and replacement parts has increased significantly."

They said that continuing malfunctions had often led to the barriers being damaged.

All but one of the car parks have already had their barriers removed. The remaining barrier at Orchard multi-storey car park on Paul Street will be removed by the end of September, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Councillor Mike Rigby, who is responsible for transport, said: "The original system simply didn't work.

"[It] resulted in over 100,000 manual interventions in 2022 alone to release people from car parks, where they had sometimes been trapped for several hours."

The decision to install the barriers in Taunton - at a cost of £556,000 - was taken by the Conservative-controlled Taunton Deane Borough Council, months before it merged with West Somerset Council to become Somerset West and Taunton Council.

The council says the barriers will be stored after their removal and offered for sale to other parking organisations and local authorities.

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