EXETER motorists are over-paying by hundreds of pounds each week for on-street parking.
And one Exeter councillor believes that the total could be more than £300,000 over a year.
Operated by the county council, on-street parking meters do not give change.
Figures obtained by the Echo reveal that in just one week in Southernhay alone it is estimated drivers overpaid by more than £200.
According to Percy Prowse, county councillor for Pennsylvania and Duryard, Cornwall County Council recently revealed that it takes £300,000 a year in over payment and he says it is likely to be more in Devon.
Cllr Prowse said: "Cornwall does not take as much in parking charges as we do, so money raised through over-payment is likely to be higher in Devon.
"It is almost as if the system is designed to do this.
"We bought machines that don't give change and then parking charges are such odd amounts – £1.80, for example, so it is likely that drivers will just put in a £2 coin because they don't have the right change."
Cllr Prowse is to raise the issue at the next meeting of Exeter highways committee in April.
The money raised by on-street parking, including the over-payments are spent on traffic schemes and Cllr Prowse believes that more of this money should be spent in Exeter, which has the most on-street parking in the county.
A spokesman for the county council said: " Our systems do not report overpayment, and any calculation is a manual exercise which would not be practical to carry out for the whole county. However transactions carried out in a single week between Monday and Saturday (inclusive) on a busy section of parking in the centre of Exeter (Southernhay) were reviewed. There were a total of 3,160 transactions, with £3,966.50 was taken.
"It would appear that 18.5per cent of the transactions had an element of overpayment. This amounted to £202.10, 5.1per cent of total monies taken. This figure could be pro-rata'd to achieve an understanding of the potential value of overpayment countywide.
"Any monies derived from pay and display are held in the on street parking account.
"On-street parking account monies are spent on parking enforcement, and, various transport and highways schemes as is reported annually to cabinet."
A total of £1.65m from the on-street parking account is to be spent on transport and highways this coming financial year.
Of this, the largest chunk, £569,000 is to be spent supporting bus services.
