THE council is set to consider the contract for its car park payment machines following last year’s overcharging fiasco.

Worcester City Council will meet in secret to consider a report about its contract with Flowbird, which operates the payment machines at more than a dozen car parks.

Last year, a glitch resulted in around £400,000 being taken in error from more than 15,000 sessions at council-owned car parks across the city.

This meant more than 1,500 drivers were overcharged for parking with some seeing hundreds of pounds taken from their back accounts after being charged multiple times.

The current provider Flowbird, which runs the city’s machines on the council’s behalf, was blamed by the council for the error that led to thousands of drivers overcharged for parking in Worcester and it is perhaps unlikely that council bosses will remain loyal to a company it was threatening with legal action.

The city council said it was less than happy with third-party parking machine operator Flowbird after missing the refund deadline and breaking its promise to reimburse all those affected.

As refunds finally began to be made to driver’s bank accounts, bosses at the council said they were “reviewing” their deal with ticket provider Flowbird saying the problems had not been fixed as quickly as they would have liked.

Worcester City Council intends to up the fees at more than a dozen of its car parks to bring in more money to help fill a hole of at least £1 million in its budget, but the authority’s leader slammed the decision saying “the timing wasn’t right.”

Cllr Chris Mitchell, leader of Worcester City Council, said it was wrong to raise parking charges – which have not changed since 2009 – during a cost-of-living crisis and especially after last year’s card payment chaos which saw thousands of drivers needlessly charged several times for parking in the city.

The policy and resources committee will meet in the Guildhall on February 3 but will be discussing the contract behind closed doors.