Parking machines across the district have been given an upgrade by the council following continued complaints by residents about the amount of time it took for payments to be processed.

With Warwick District Council moving towards cashless machines across its car parks, many locals had become increasingly frustrated as they were forced to wait for the card machines to accept their charge.

But speaking at last night's full council meeting, Cllr Jody Tracy said the council had upgraded all its machines with new modems to make them faster - a week ahead of schedule.

"This is further supporting businesses at this important trading period," he said.

"I can confirm, having tested the machines at St Peter's today, that there is a noticeable improvement in the speed to pay. 

"Where signals are obstructed by surrounding buildings we have also taken the opportunity to add an internal antenna to further enhance the payment process.

"We now enter a period of monitoring over the festive period to ensure performance is as we would anticipate."

The news comes just weeks after it was revealed that the district council would not increase its parking charges next year.