THE Lanes Shopping Centre has confirmed that it has 'temporarily' reverted to ticketed parking after the introduction of its new Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) system.

The Carlisle shopping centre, which has a multi-storey car park on Lowther Street, has re-introduced its ticketed parking system weeks after it had had its new parking system installed.

This re-introduction of parking tickets comes due to initial teething problems with the new ticketless ANPR system and the need for further 'enabling works'.

It also comes as a number of local shoppers reported difficulties with operating the new system when parking in the multi-storey car park

One shopper said on social media: "The system completely failed today, massive queue at the machine and when people were typing their reg number in it wasn’t recognising the cars and was showing random pictures of cars.

"The voice over the machine blamed it on teething problems.

Another said:  "I hadn't realised it was changing until I parked up today. My car was not recognised so couldn't pay. 

"The queue for the machine was far too long. I'm very disappointed this system has been put into place."

However,  despite the delay to the introduction of the ANPR system, the car park has now adopted its new contactless-only payment method. 

Susan Young, the Lanes Shopping Centre manager, confirmed the temporary reversion to ticketed parking had taken place.

"The installation of the new parking system at The Lanes, took place over the course of the week commencing Monday, October 9, and went live on Friday, October 13," she said.

"We realised reasonably quickly that further enabling works were required with the ANPR operating system and, as a result, temporarily re-introduced the issuing of tickets."

She also confirmed that the ANPR system will still be coming into operation, with an estimated arrival date of Monday, November 20.

She said: "We are working with our contractors and are confident that these works will be resolved week commencing 20th November and will ensure that once we move to the full ANPR operation, we provide our customers with advance notice of the switch and support from the site team."