Current status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 November 2024
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will support local government to develop an open source cashless parking service app to avoid the rents extracted by private cashless parking app vendors, which are reported to be around 20p per transaction.
The Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 places the statutory responsibility for local roads with the local road authorities, including parking. The provision of parking, the charges levied and how they are collected is therefore at the local authorities discretion and this is not something in which the Scottish Government would become directly involved.
There is a National Parking Platform available across the UK, run at no cost to local authorities by the Department of Transport, which local authorities in Scotland would be free to participate in if they so wish.