People using town centre car parks in Newmarket will no longer need to worry about having the correct change after the district council invested £22,500 in contactless card machines.

Forest Heath District Council has invested in seven contactless debit/credit card machines, with three installed in the Guineas car park and one in each of the car parks at All Saints, Church Lane, Grosvenor Yard and Rous Road.

The council operated car parks have seen an increase in usage with 24,500 more visits last year, a 3.5% increase compared to 2016.

Lance Stanbury, Forest Heath’s cabinet member for planning and growth, said: “Newmarket is becoming increasingly popular with people using our car parks regularly to visit the town centre to shop, to enjoy a bite to eat, to work and to visit our wonderful visitor attraction at the National Heritage Centre for Horseracing and Sporting Art.”

David Bowman, Forest Heath’s cabinet member for operations, said: “We all know that use of town centre car parks is one of the barometers of how well a town is doing and the latest figures, which will be considered by our overview and scrutiny committee later this week, show a healthy picture.

“That growth is great news for the town centre economy and we have capacity in place to meet demand as it increases further still.

“Obviously we want to encourage people to use our car parks by making them easier to use.

“The council’s investment in these machines mean people will no longer need to worry about having the correct change.”

There is no surcharge for using the machines. The RingGo mobile phone payment system is already operated in Newmarket.