A car park in Oxford will operate a completely cashless payment system from July.

A cashless payment trial will start at Oxford City Council’s Summertown car park from July 1.

The trial is the next step in realising the city council’s ambitions of going cashless at all the city’s car parks.

City councillor and cabinet member for planning and healthier communities Louise Upton said: "The council-run car parks in the centre of Oxford have been cashless for some time now.

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“We want to continue to expand the scheme so that our out-of-town car parks will all eventually become cashless.

“The change at Summertown offers a practical trial so we can be sure customers do not experience inconvenience.

“More and more services are becoming available only through cashless systems.

“The vast majority of users are paying for parking by card at the pay machine, through our pay-by-phone provider RingGo, or through Hozah the automatic payment provider.

Ms Upton said going cashless at car parks was a “way to reduce administrative costs at a time of financial crisis”.

The trial will last for three months, and Summertown will be the fourth city council car park to become cashless.

The new arrangement for the Summertown car park will not affect car parks run by other operators, such as the Westgate car park or the county council’s on street parking places.